ere gathered into little groups, unpacking
their instruments, unfolding their racks and eying the chorus with
metropolitan disdain. Here and there a violinist, his violin at his
shoulder, sauntered up and down the floor, alternately drawing his bow
across the strings and lowering it again, while he tightened them. Then,
in answer to the call from the oboe, the whole place grew filled with
their din, discordant at first, but slowly coming into more and more
perfect harmony, uniting upon the single note, breaking again into
countless changing tones, only to yield once more to the single _A_,
caught, dropped during an instant's pause, then caught again and held in
long-drawn, jubilant sonority.

On the heels of the other soloists, Thayer picked his way up the narrow
aisle at the right of the tenors, and took his seat upon the little
stage. As he did so, he discovered a diminutive gallery directly over
the main entrance to the hall. Side by side in the gallery sat two men,
the president of the chorus and Bobby Dane.

Bobby was beaming down at him placidly, and Thayer's face lighted at the
unexpected sight of his friend. Bobby nodded occasionally, to mark his
approval of the music; then, at the end of Thayer's first solo, he laid
his score on the gallery rail and led off a volley of applause which,
echoing back from the chorus, roused Bobby to such a pitch of
enthusiasm that he knocked the score off the rail and sent it tumbling
down among the rear ranks of the altos.

"Why the unmentionable mischief do you waste your energies, singing like
that at a rehearsal?" he demanded abruptly of Thayer, as he joined him
on the stairs.

"Where the unmentionable mischief did you come from?" Thayer responded,
seizing Bobby's hand in his own firm clasp.

"New York. Just came up, this morning. I'm doing the concert, to-night."

"Oh! I was under the impression that I was going to do a part of it,
myself."

"Musically. I represent the power of the Press."

"As critic?"

"Certainly."

"How long since?"

"To-day. The regular critic is busy with a domestic funeral, his
grandmother, or step-mother, or something, and it lay between the devil
and me to take his place. Strange to say, the Chief chose me; but he was
morose enough to say the old lady shouldn't have died, just when all the
other papers in town were sending up their best critics."

"But how do you expect to get up a criticism?"

Bobby smiled up at him in smug satisfact