ears witty topical songs,
_chansons d'amour_, and absurdities telling of the eels and fishes in
amorous conversation, such extravagances as the French love. There is no
vulgarity. Their diction is marvellous, and of course they sacrifice,
entirely, their tone to their words. All around the walls are posters
and drawings of famous artists and caricatures of Parisians. The
performers are called on in turn by the master of ceremonies, and take
their stand on a little platform in front of the piano half way up the
room. When they have finished, if they have been popular, we are all
called on to join in the _doublement_ for Monsieur so and so. This
consists of clapping to a certain rhythm, which is thumped on the piano:
1 2 3 4 5,--1 2 3 4 5,--1 2 3 4 5--1 2 3--and over again."

In those days Charles Fallot was still at the "Noctambules" and used to
arise, very black and white and thin, and gaze at himself in the big
mirror opposite, while he gestured with his long, skinny arms and
thoroughly French hands, and delivered himself of his witty _double
entendre chansons_. Another night we went to a famous Montmartre place,
Boite a Fursy, but it was not at all the same thing, and we neither of
us liked it.

Henry Hadley had the room above me, and often told me my hours of
playing "Carmen," etc., nearly maddened him. I always studied in bed or
at the piano, without singing, and rarely used my voice when committing
roles to memory. Hadley often had Cyril Scott, the English composer, in
his rooms, and I used to listen with joy to Scott's imaginative playing.
It was like birds sweeping and swooping, all keys and intervals were
interwoven. He always said, one hand on his forehead, "I have no
understanding for limitations of harmony or rules of tempo." And indeed
why should one have? He liked nothing older than Debussy and was
unspeakably bored by Gluck or Beethoven and their ilk, though he loved
"Carmen." Hadley still retained a strong admiration for Wagner and
respect for the old school, though he much appreciated the moderns and
the modern orchestra. I first saw Mary Garden as _Melisande_ with him.
We both sat rapt and spellbound to the end, transported by what was to
me a perfect revelation as to scoring for modern orchestra, the
intangible operatic form, and most of all the subtle imaginative acting
of Mary Garden. Her power of suggestion in those days was capable of
conveying any shade of thought or delicate mood to the spectato