re orchestra you want to remember you ain't got a
friend in the world, see?"

Milton nodded.

"And, furthermore," the Professor concluded, "make some more breaks
like that and see what'll happen you."

Waltzes and two-steps succeeded each other with monotonous regularity
until the grand march for supper was announced. For three years Ferdy
Rothman had been chairman of the entertainment and floor committee of
Harmony Lodge I.O.M.A.'s annual ball, and he was a virtuoso in the
intricate art of arranging a grand march to supper. His aids were six
in number, and as Ferdy marched up the ballroom floor they were
standing with their backs to the music platform ten paces apart. When
Ferdy arrived at the foot of the platform he faced about and split the
line of marching couples. The ladies wheeled sharply to the right and
the gentlemen to the left, and thereafter began a series of evolutions
which, in the mere witnessing, would have given a blacksnake lumbago.

Again Milton became entranced and his fingers remained motionless on
the strings, while, instead of sawing away on the music-stand, his
right arm hung by his side. Once more the drummer missed a beat and
struck him in the ribs, and Milton, looking up, caught sight of the
glaring, demoniacal Lusthaus.

The composition was one of Professor Lusthaus's own and had been
especially devised for grand marches to supper. In rhythm and melody it
was exceedingly conventional, not to say reminiscent, and when Milton
seized his bow with the energy of despair and drew it sharply across
the strings of the _contra basso_ there was introduced a melodic and
harmonic element so totally at variance with the character of the
composition as to outrage the ears of even Ferdy Rothman. For one fatal
moment he turned his head, as did his six aids, and at once the grand
march to supper became a hopeless tangle. Simultaneously Milton saw
that in five minutes he would be propelled violently to the street at
the head of a flying wedge, and he sawed away with a grim smile on his
face. Groans like the ultimate sighs of a dying elephant came from
underneath his bow, while occasionally he surprised himself with a
weird harmonic. At length Professor Lusthaus could stand it no longer.
He threw his baton at Milton and followed it up with his violin case,
at which Milton deemed it time to retreat. He grabbed his hat and
overcoat and dashed wildly through the ranks of the thirty-nine
performers toward the