agement, and the nullifying of
mistakes otherwise disastrous; the man on whose nerve and animating
enthusiasm depended the reputation of the Society and of Bursley--tapped
his baton and stilled the chatter of the audience with a glance. The
footlights went up, the lights of the chandelier went down, and almost
before any one was aware of the fact the overture had commenced. There
could be no withdrawal now; the die was cast; the boats were burnt. In
the artistic history of Bursley a decisive moment had arrived.

In a very few seconds people began to realise, slowly, timidly, but
surely, that after all they were listening to a real orchestra. The mere
volume of sound startled them; the verve and decision of the players
filled them with confidence; the bright grace of the well-known airs
laid them under a spell. They looked diffidently at each other, as if
to say: 'This is not so bad, you know.' And when the finale was reached,
with its prodigious succession of crescendos, and its irresistible
melody somehow swimming strongly through a wild sea of tone, the
audience forgot its pose of critical aloofness and became unaffectedly
human. The last three bars of the overture were smothered in applause.

The conductor, as pale as though he had seen a ghost, turned and bowed
stiffly. 'Put that in your pipe and smoke it,' his unrelaxing features
said to the audience; and also: 'If you have ever heard the thing better
played in the Five Towns, be good enough to inform me where!'

There was a hesitation, the brief murmur of a hidden voice, and the
curtains of the fit-up stage swung apart and disclosed the roseate
environs of Castle Bunthorne, ornamented by those famous maidens who
were dying for love of its aesthetic owner. The audience made no attempt
to grasp the situation of the characters until it had satisfactorily
settled the private identity of each. That done, it applied itself to
the sympathetic comprehension of the feelings of a dozen young women who
appeared to spend their whole existence in statuesque poses and
plaintive but nonsensical lyricism. It failed, honestly; and even when
the action descended from song to banal dialogue, it was not reassured.
'Silly' was the unspoken epithet on a hundred tongues, despite the
delicate persuasion of the music, the virginal charm of the maidens, and
the illuminated richness of costumes and scene. The audience understood
as little of the operatic convention as of the aestheticism c