ces me and shows me that breast full of medals extending
from the whiskerline to the beltline, and I appreciate him still more
when he turns round and gives me a look at that back of his. Since
Colonel W. F. Cody practically retired and Miss Mary Garden went away to
Europe, I know of no public back which for inherent grace and poetry of
spinal motion can quite compare with Mr. Sousa's.

I am in my element then. I do not care so very much for Home, Sweet
Home, as rendered with so many variations that it's almost impossible
to recognize the old place any more; but when they switch to a march, a
regular Sousa march full of um-pahs, then I begin to spread myself. A
little tingle of anticipatory joy runs through me as Mr. Sousa advances
to the footlights and first waves his baton at the great big German who
plays the little shiny thing that looks like a hypodermic and sounds
like stepping on the cat, and then turns the other way and waves it at
the little bit of a German who plays the big thing that looks like a
ventilator off an ocean liner and sounds like feeding-time at the zoo.
And then he makes the invitation general and calls up the brasses and
the drums and the woods and the woodwinds, and also the thunders and the
lightnings and the cyclones and the earthquakes.

[Illustration: "AND I ENJOY IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN TELL!"]

And three or four of the trombonists pull the slides away out and let go
full steam right in my face, with a blast that blows my hair out by the
roots, and all hands join in and make so much noise that you can't hear
the music. And I enjoy it more than words can tell!

On the other hand, grand opera does not appeal to me. I can enthuse over
the robin's song in the spring, and the sound of the summer wind
rippling through the ripened wheat is not without its attractions for
me; but when I hear people going into convulsions of joy over Signor
Massacre's immortal opera of Medulla Oblongata I feel that I am out of
my element and I start back-pedaling. Lucy D. Lammermore may have been a
lovely person, but to hear a lot of foreigners singing about her for
three hours on a stretch does not appeal to me. I have a better use for
my little two dollars. For that amount I can go to a good minstrel show
and sit in a box.

You may recall when Strauss' Elektra was creating such a furor in this
country a couple of years ago. All the people you met were talking about
it whether they knew anything about it or not