patron of the entertainment ought
to have been some distinguished American. The want of an American who
was very distinguished did something to pacify them; but the behavior of
an English lord who put on no airs was the main agency. When the night
came they filled the large music room of the 'Asia Minor', and stood
about in front of the sofas and chairs so many deep that it was hard to
see or hear through them.

They each paid a shilling admittance; they were prepared to give
munificently besides when the hat came round; and after the first burst
of blundering from Lord Lioncourt, they led the magnanimous applause. He
said he never minded making a bad speech in a good cause, and he made
as bad a one as very well could be. He closed it by telling Mark Twain's
whistling story so that those who knew it by heart missed the paint; but
that might have been because he hurried it, to get himself out of the
way of the others following. When he had done, one of the most ardent of
the Americans proposed three cheers for him.

The actress whom he had secured in spite of Mrs. Milray appeared
in woman's dress contrary to her inveterate professional habit, and
followed him with great acceptance in her favorite variety-stage song;
and then her husband gave imitations of Sir Henry Irving, and of Miss
Maggie Kline in "T'row him down, McCloskey," with a cockney accent. A
frightened little girl, whose mother had volunteered her talent, gasped
a ballad to her mother's accompaniment, and two young girls played a
duet on the mandolin and guitar. A gentleman of cosmopolitan military
tradition, who sold the pools in the smoking-room, and was the friend of
all the men present, and the acquaintance of several, gave selections of
his autobiography prefatory to bellowing in a deep bass voice, "They're
hanging Danny Deaver," and then a lady interpolated herself into the
programme with a kindness which Lord Lioncourt acknowledged, in saying
"The more the merrier," and sang Bonnie Dundee, thumping the piano out
of all proportion to her size and apparent strength.

Some advances which Clementina had made for Mrs. Milray's help about the
dress she should wear in her dance met with bewildering indifference,
and she had fallen back upon her own devices. She did not think of
taking back her promise, and she had come to look forward to her part
with a happiness which the good weather and the even sway of the ship
encouraged. But her pulses fluttered, as