ion over his own wiliness.

"By caressing the mammon of unrighteousness. I know you; likewise the
president of this chorus was in my prep. school. I happened to hear of
him, last week, and I am banking on the fact for all it is worth.
Therefore I have two strings to my bow. That's more than one of your
second violins did. To my certain knowledge, he wrecked two strings in
the overture and one in the prelude of your first solo. After that, I
got interested and lost count."

"Do you expect us to dictate our own praises?"

"Not much. I am too canny for that. Besides, don't be too sure they will
be praises. No; I have asked the president, in strict confidence, just
what he thinks of you, and his answer was properly garrulous. His
originality was startling, too. He observed that you have temperament.
Now I am proceeding to ask you, also in strict confidence, what you
think of the chorus."

"That it has intemperament," Thayer responded promptly. "Dane, I abhor
that word."

"Is that the reason you coined its negative?"

"No; but it gets on my nerves. When it started out into service, it
meant something; but now it is used to express everything, from real
artistic feeling down to the way a man rolls up his eyes when he sings
love songs. I wish you newspaper men would bring out something new to
take its place. You can do it; you generally set the fashion in words."

"I'll ask Lee, when he gets over his funeral," Bobby suggested. "It is
out of my line. I am a greater artist than he is, a typographical song
without words. I do scareheads, and buffet the devil. Thayer?"

"Yes?"

"Do you honestly enjoy this sort of thing?"

Thayer glanced down at the muddy crossing where they stood waiting for a
car to pass.

"No. I prefer an occasional street-cleaning episode; but what can you
expect in a March thaw?"

"I don't mean that," Bobby said impatiently. "I'm not joking now."

"Beg pardon," Thayer returned briefly. "What do you mean, Dane?"

"I mean all this tramping round the country, singing to strange people,
getting applause at night and reading about yourself, next day. Doesn't
it get a frightful bore, after the dozenth time you've been through
it?"

"The applause and the audience and the criticisms, yes. The singing,
no," Thayer said, after an interval.

"And you're willing to put up with one for the sake of the other?"

"Yes."

Bobby dodged a shower of mud from a passing cab.

"Well, tastes differ, then. In