nd
them vastly more entertaining and preferable to the silence of the
deserted club, where the matting was down, and from whence the regular
habitues had departed to the other side or to Newport. He liked the
swing of the light, bright music as it came to him through the open
door of the dressing-room, and the glimpse he got of the chorus people
crowding and pushing for a quick charge up the iron stairway, and the
feverish smell of oxygen in the air, and the picturesque disorder of
Lester's wardrobe, and the wigs and swords, and the mysterious articles
of make-up, all mixed together on a tray with half-finished cigars and
autograph books and newspaper notices.

And he often wished he was clever enough to be an artist with the
talent to paint the unconsciously graceful groups in the sharply
divided light and shadow of the wings as he saw them. The brilliantly
colored, fantastically clothed girls leaning against the bare brick
wall of the theatre, or whispering together in circles, with their arms
close about one another, or reading apart and solitary, or working at
some piece of fancy-work as soberly as though they were in a
rocking-chair in their own flat, and not leaning against a scene brace,
with the glare of the stage and the applause of the house just behind
them. He liked to watch them coquetting with the big fireman detailed
from the precinct engine-house, and clinging desperately to the curtain
wire, or with one of the chorus men on the stairs, or teasing the
phlegmatic scene-shifters as they tried to catch a minute's sleep on a
pile of canvas. He even forgave the prima donna's smiling at him from
the stage, as he stood watching her from the wings, and smiled back at
her with polite cynicism, as though he did not know and she did not
know that her smiles were not for him, but to disturb some more
interested one in the front row. And so, in time, the company became
so well accustomed to him that he moved in and about as unnoticed as
the stage-manager himself, who prowled around hissing "hush" on
principle, even though he was the only person who could fairly be said
to be making a noise.

The second act was on, and Lester came off the stage and ran to the
dressing-room and beckoned violently. "Come here," he said; "you ought
to see this; the children are doing their turn. You want to hear them.
They're great!"

Van Bibber put his cigar into a tumbler and stepped out into the wings.
They were crowded on