hers on the stage in those days," we interposed.

"No matter," the rejected contributor retorted. "There are now, and that
is the important matter. I am coming to the very instant of actuality,
to the show which I saw yesterday, and which I should have brought my
paper down to mention if it had been accepted." He drew a long breath,
and said, with a dreamy air of retrospect: "It is all of a charming
unity, a tradition unbroken from the dawn of civilization. When I go to
a variety show, and drop my ticket into the chopping-box at the door,
and fastidiously choose my unreserved seat in the best place I can get,
away from interposing posts and persons, and settle down to a long
afternoon's delight, I like to fancy myself a far-fetched phantom of the
past, who used to do the same thing at Thebes or Nineveh as many
thousand years ago as you please. I like to think that I too am an
unbroken tradition, and my pleasure will be such as shaped smiles
immemorially gone to dust."

We made our reflection that this passage was probably out of the
rejected contribution, but we did not say anything, and our visitor went
on.

"And what a lot of pleasure I did get, yesterday, for my fifty cents!
There were twelve stunts on the bill, not counting the kalatechnoscope,
and I got in before the first was over, so that I had the immediate
advantage of seeing a gifted fellow-creature lightly swinging himself
between two chairs which had their outer legs balanced on the tops of
caraffes full of water, and making no more of the feat than if it were a
walk in the Park or down Fifth Avenue. How I respected that man! What
study had gone to the perfection of that act, and the others that he
equally made nothing of! He was simply billed as 'Equilibrist,' when his
name ought to have been blazoned in letters a foot high if they were in
any wise to match his merit. He was followed by 'Twin Sisters,' who, as
'Refined Singers and Dancers,' appeared in sweeping confections of white
silk, with deeply drooping, widely spreading white hats, and
long-fringed white parasols heaped with artificial roses, and sang a
little tropical romance, whose burden was

'Under the bamboo-tree,'

brought in at unexpected intervals. They also danced this romance with
languid undulations, and before you could tell how or why, they had
disappeared and reappeared in short green skirts, and then shorter white
skirts, with steps and stops appropriate to their costumes, but