close in next each other when
we got to our seats. This was my star play. If they didn't fall for each
other now--Shucks! They had to. And I noticed they was more confidential
already, with Nettie looking at him sometimes almost respectfully.

"Well, the concert went fine, with the hired lady professional singer
giving us some operatic gems in various foreign languages in the first
part, and Ed Bughalter singing "A King of the Desert Am I, Ha, Ha!" very
bass--Ed always sounds to me like moving heavy furniture round that
ain't got any casters under it--and Mrs. Dr. Percy Hailey Martingale
with the "Jewel Song" from Faust, that she learned in a musical
conservatory at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and "Coming Through the Rye"
for an encore--holding the music rolled up in her hands, though the Lord
knows she knew every word and note of it by heart--and the North Side
Ladies' String Quartet, and Wilbur Todd, of course, putting on more airs
than as if he was the only son of old man Piano himself, while he
shifted the gears and pumped, and Nettie whispering that he always slept
two hours before performing in public and took no nourishment but one
cup of warm milk--just a bundle of nerves that way--and she sent him up
a bunch of lilies tied with lavender ribbon while he was bowing and
scraping, but I didn't pay no attention to that, for now it was coming.

"Yes, sir, the last thing was this here lady professional, getting up
stern and kind of sweetish sad in her low-cut black dress to sing the
song of songs. I was awful excited for a party of my age, and I see they
was, too. Nettie nudged Chet and whispered, 'Don't you just love it?'
And Chet actually says, 'I love it,' so no wonder I felt sure, when up
to that time he'd hardly been able to say a word except about his pa
being willing to take them calves for almost nothing. Then I seen his
eyes glaze and point off across the hall, and darned if there wasn't
this manicure party in a cheek little hat and tailored gown, setting
with Mrs. Henry Lehman and her husband. But still I felt all right,
because him and Nettie was nudging each other intimately again when
Professor Gluckstein started in on the accompaniment--I bet Wilbur
thinks the prof is awful old-fashioned, playing with his fingers that
way; I know they don't speak on the street.

"So this lady just floated into that piece with all the heart stops
pulled out, and after one line I didn't begrudge her a cent of my fifty.
I j