"And you've saw all the op'ras?" she ast him.

"Most o' them," he says.

"How grand!" says Bessie. "I wisht I could see a lot o' them."

"Well," he says, "you're goin' to be here for some time."

"Oh, Mr. Bishop, I don't want you throwin' all your money away on me,"

she says.

"I don't call it throwin' money away," says Bishop.

"I wouldn't neither," I says. "I'd say Bishop was muscle-bound."

They didn't pay no attention to me.

"What ones would you like to see?" he ast her.

"What are your favorights?" says Bess.

"Oh," says Bishop, "I've saw them all so many times that it don't really make no difference to me. Sometimes they give two the same night, two short ones, and then you ain't so liable to get bored."

Sat.u.r.day nights is when they usually give the two, and Sat.u.r.day nights they cut the prices. This here Bishop wasn't no b.o.o.b.

"One good combination," he says, "is _Polly Archer_ and _Cavalier Rusticana_. They're both awful pretty."

"Oh, I'd love to see them," says Bessie. "What are they like?"

So he says Polly Archer was a leadin' lady in a stock company and the leadin' man and another fella was both stuck on her and she loved one o'

them--I forget which one; whichever wasn't her husbun'--and they was a place in one o' their shows where the one that was her husbun' was supposed to get jealous and stab she and her lover, just actin', but, instead o' just pretendin', this one night he played a joke on them and done the stabbin' in earnest, and they was both killed. Well, that'd be a good one to see if you happened to be there the night he really kills them; otherwise, it sounds pretty tame. And Bishop also told her about _Cavalier Rusticana_ that means Rural Free Delivery in English, and I didn't get the plot only that the mail carrier flirts with one o' the farmers' wives and o' course the rube spears him with a pitchfork. The state's attorneys must of been on the jump all the w'ile in them days.

Finally the orchestra was all in their places and an old guy with a beard come out in front o' them.

"That's the conductor," says Bishop.

"He looks like he'd been a long time with the road," I says.

Then up went the curtain and the thermometer.

The scene's laid in Little Italy, but you can't see nothin' when it starts off because it's supposed to be just before mornin'. Pretty soon one o' the three kings comes in with a grouch. He's old and blind as a bat and he ain't slept good and he's sore at the conductor on account o'

the train bein' a half-hour late, and the conductor's jealous of him because his beard's longer, and Archibald, that's the old king's name, won't sing what the orchestra's playin', but just snarls and growls, and the orchestra can't locate what key he's snarlin' in, so they don't get along at all, and finally Flamingo, that's the old king's chauffeur, steers him off'n the stage.

Acrost on the other side o' the stage from where they go off they's a bungalow, and out of it comes Flora and another o' the kings, a young fella with a tenor voice named Veto. They sing about what a fine mornin'

it is in Wop and she tells him he'd better fly his kite before Archibald catches him.

It seems like she's married to Archibald's son, Fred, but o' course she likes Veto better or it wouldn't be no op'ra. Her and Veto was raised in the same ward and they was oncet engaged to be married, but Archibald's gang trimmed Veto's in a big roughhouse one night and Flora was part o'

the spoils. When Archibald seen how good she could fix spaghett' he was bound she'd stick in the family, so he give her the choice o' bein'

killed or marryin' his boy, so she took Fred but didn't really mean it in earnest. So Veto hangs round the house a lot, because old Archibald's blind and Fred's generally always on the road with the Erie section gang.

But old Archibald's eyes bein' no good, his ears is so much the better, even if he don't sometimes keep with the orchestra, so he comes back on the stage just after Veto's went and he hears Flora tryin' to snoop back in her bungalow.

"Who was you talkin' to?" he says.

"Myself," says Flora.

"Great stuff!" says Archibald. "Up and outdoors at five A.M. to talk to yourself! Feed that to the goldfish!"

So she ain't got him fooled for a minute, but w'ile they're arguin' Fred blows in. So Archibald don't say nothin' about his superst.i.tion because he ain't sure, so Fred and his Missus goes in the bungalow to have breakfast and Archibald stays on the stage quarrelin' with the conductor.

If Fred was eatin' all through the intermission, he must of been as hungry as me, because it was plain forty minutes before the second act begin. Him and Flora comes out o' their house and Fred says he's got to go right away again because they's a bad wash-out this side o'

Huntington. He ain't no sooner gone than Veto's back on the job, but Flora's kind o' sorry for her husbun', and Veto don't get the reception that a star ought to expect.

"Why don't you smile at me?" he says.

So she says:

"It don't seem proper, dearie, with a husbun' on the Erie."

But before long she can't resist his high notes and the next five or ten minutes is a love scene between the two, and they was a couple o' times when I thought the management would ring down the asbestos curtain.

Finally old Archibald snoops back on the stage with Flamingo, and Veto runs, but Archie hears him and it's good night. The old boy gives Flora the third degree and she owns up, and then Flamingo says that Fred's comin' back to get his dinner pail. So Archibald insists on knowin' the fella's name that he heard him runnin' away, but Flora's either forgot it or else she's stubborn, so Archie looses his temper and wrings her neck. So when Fred arrives he gets the su'prise of his life and finds out he's a widow.

"I slayed her," says Archibald. "She wasn't no good."

"She was the best cook we ever had," says Fred. "What was the matter with her?"

"She had a gentleman friend," says his old man.

Well, so far, they's only one dead and nothin' original about how it was pulled. You can go over to the Victoria and see any number o'

throttlin's at fifty cents for the best seats. So it was up to the management to get a wallop into the last act. It took them pretty near forty minutes to think of it, but it was good when it come.

The scene is Colosimo's undertakin' rooms and Flora's ruins is laid out on the counter. All the Wops from her ward stand round singin' gospel hymns.

When they've beat it Veto approaches the bier bar and wastes some pretty fair singin' on the late Flora. Then all of a sudden he leans over and gives her a kiss. That's all for Veto. You see, Old Fox Archibald had figured that the bird that loved her would pull somethin' like this and he'd doped out a way to learn who he was and make him regret it at the same time, besides springin' some bran'-new stuff in the killin' line.

So he's mixed up some rat poison and garlic and spread it on the lips of his fair daughter-in-law.

W'ile Veto's dyin' Fred comes in and finds him.

"So it was you, was it?" he says.

"I'm the guy," says Veto.

"Well," says Fred, "this'll learn you a lesson, you old masher, you!"

"I'll mash you in a minute," says Veto, but the way he was now, he couldn't of mashed turnips.

"I kissed her last, anyway," says Veto.