to the macaw,
occasionally varied by _ad lib._ screams and chuckles from that evil
white-eyed bird. From the staccato remarks of the poisonous young woman,
we, the audience, were to deduce the erratic eroticism of an _ame
damnee_. It was not particularly difficult to do so, nor was it
particularly entertaining. As a little adventure in supercynicism,
"Polly," in short, was not particularly successful. It needed, and had
not been able to obtain, the boulevard wit of a Sacha Guitry to carry it
off. But the poisonous young woman had an exquisitely proportioned
figure, and her arms, bare to the slight shoulder-straps, were quite
faultless. Minor effects of this kind have, even on Broadway, been known
to save more than one bad quarter hour from complete collapse.... No, it
was not the author's lines that carried us safely through this first
fifteen minutes of diluted Strindberg-Schnitzler! And the too
deliberately bizarre _mise en scene_, though for a moment it piqued
curiosity, had soon proved wearisome, and we were glad--at least, Jimmy
and I were--to have it veiled from our eyes.

The curtain rolled down, nevertheless, to ecstatic cries and stubbornly
sustained applause. Raised lights revealed an excited, chattering band
of the faithful. The poisonous young woman took four curtain calls and
would seemingly, from her parting gesture, have drawn us collectively to
her fine bosom with those faultless, unreluctant arms. And the maiden on
my right shuddered forth to her escort, "I'm thrilled, darling! Feel
them--feel my hands--they're _moon-cold_! They always are, you know,
when I'm thrilled!"

"You can't beat this much, Mr. Hunt," whispered Jimmy, on my left. "It's
bughouse."

In a sense, it was; in a truer sense, it was not. A careful analysis of
the audience would, I was quickly convinced, have disclosed not merely a
saving remnant, but a saving majority of honest workmen in the arts--men
and women too solidly endowed with brains and humor for any
self-conscious posing or public exhibition of temperament. The genuine
freaks among us were a scant handful; but it is the special talent and
purpose of your freak to--in Whitman's phrase--"positively appear." Ten
able freaks to the hundred can turn any public gathering into a side
show; and the freaks of the Village, particularly the females of the
species, are nothing if not able. Minna Freund, for example, who was
sitting just in front of Jimmy; it would be difficult for any