was It. Stage hands and supers and
programme sellers acknowledged it to one another without the least
reservation. The name of the _revue_ dwindled to secondary importance,
and vast letters of electric blue blazoned the words "Cousin Teresa" from
the front of the great palace of pleasure. And, of course, the magic of
the famous refrain laid its spell all over the Metropolis. Restaurant
proprietors were obliged to provide the members of their orchestras with
painted wooden dogs on wheels, in order that the much-demanded and always
conceded melody should be rendered with the necessary spectacular
effects, and the crash of bottles and forks on the tables at the mention
of the big borzoi usually drowned the sincerest efforts of drum or
cymbals. Nowhere and at no time could one get away from the double thump
that brought up the rear of the refrain; revellers reeling home at night
banged it on doors and hoardings, milkmen clashed their cans to its
cadence, messenger boys hit smaller messenger boys resounding double
smacks on the same principle. And the more thoughtful circles of the
great city were not deaf to the claims and significance of the popular
melody. An enterprising and emancipated preacher discoursed from his
pulpit on the inner meaning of "Cousin Teresa," and Lucas Harrowcluff was
invited to lecture on the subject of his great achievement to members of
the Young Mens' Endeavour League, the Nine Arts Club, and other learned
and willing-to-learn bodies. In Society it seemed to be the one thing
people really cared to talk about; men and women of middle age and
average education might be seen together in corners earnestly discussing,
not the question whether Servia should have an outlet on the Adriatic, or
the possibilities of a British success in international polo contests,
but the more absorbing topic of the problematic Aztec or Nilotic origin
of the Teresa _motiv_.

"Politics and patriotism are so boring and so out of date," said a
revered lady who had some pretensions to oracular utterance; "we are too
cosmopolitan nowadays to be really moved by them. That is why one
welcomes an intelligible production like 'Cousin Teresa,' that has a
genuine message for one. One can't understand the message all at once,
of course, but one felt from the very first that it was there. I've been
to see it eighteen times and I'm going again to-morrow and on Thursday.
One can't see it often enough."

* * * * *

"It would