, _The Nation_, _The
Independent_, _The Review of Reviews_, _The World's Work_, _Collier's_,
and _The Atlantic Monthly_, which she had been glancing over in the Home
Club library. She hadn't learned much of the technique of the arts, but
she had acquired an uneasy conscience of the sort which rather
discredits any book or music or picture which it easily enjoys. She was,
for a moment, apologetic to these insistent new standards, because she
had given herself up to Mr. Schwirtz's low conversation.... She was not
vastly different from a young lady just back in Panama from a term in
the normal school, with new lights derived from a gentlemanly young
English teacher with poetic interests and a curly mustache.

"Sure," affirmed Mr. Schwirtz, "I like poetry fine. Used to read it
myself when I was traveling out of St. Paul and got kind of stuck on a
waitress at Eau Claire." This did not perfectly satisfy Una, but she was
more satisfied that he had heard the gospel of culture after he had
described, with much detail, his enjoyment of a "fella from Boston,
perfessional reciter; they say he writes swell poetry himself; gave us a
program of Kipling and Ella Wheeler Wilcox before the Elks--real poetic
fella."

"Do you go to concerts, symphonies, and so on, much?" Una next
catechized.

"Well, no; that's where I fall down. Just between you and I, I never did
have much time for these high-brows that try to make out they're so darn
much better than common folks by talking about motifs and symphony poems
and all that long-haired stuff. Fellow that's in music goods took me to
a Philharmonic concert once, and I couldn't make head or tail of the
stuff--conductor batting a poor musician over the ear with his
swagger-stick (and him a union man, oughta kicked to his union about the
way the conductor treated him) and him coming back with a yawp on the
fiddle and getting two laps ahead of the brass band, and they all
blowing their stuffings out trying to catch up. Music they call that!
And once I went to grand opera--lot of fat Dutchmen all singing together
like they was selling old rags. Aw nix, give me one of the good old
songs like 'The Last Rose of Summer.'... I bet _you_ could sing that so
that even a sporting-goods drummer would cry and think about the
sweetheart he had when he was a kid."

"No, I couldn't--I can't sing a note," Una said, delightedly.... She had
laughed very much at Mr. Schwirtz's humor. She slid down in her chair
an