this an off night. Some wandering fireflies
absorbed him for a while, and then they flew away, leaving him alone.
Suddenly he dropped his chair from where it had been tilted back against
the wall, and said, "Well, I reckon I'll have to go and hear what the
judge has to say about improving this place. It needs it!" He found the
Grand Opera House readily enough by following the slowly moving people
who traveled in but one direction. Also he found on entering that
there's not much in a name, its grandeur consisting of a lot of badly
worn wooden seats, dingy painting, and some strips of jute carpet in the
aisles that looked as if they had been collected after a cyclone. The
stage was the bright spot, due to the decorations of flags, banners and
bunting. Jimmy got a seat in the back row after some difficulty. The
Opera House was full, perhaps because there was no charge for admission,
perhaps because there was no other place to go; but Jimmy charitably
thought the town should be patted on the back for its interest in public
improvements. Two girls played a duet on a piano and played it rather
badly. And then there came in from the wings those who were to occupy
the chairs on the stage. They entered as solemnly as if each was alone
and about to recite Hamlet's soliloquy. Some of them threw out their
chests and glared at the audience, others slunk in like harness makers
visiting a lace factory. All were seated before there stalked in the
counterpart of the drummer in the back row, and there was some evidence
in the Judge's deportment that he had the dramatic sense to wait for a
proper pause so that the spectators might see him in all his aloof
magnificence. Had the two girls played "See the Conquering Hero Comes,"
he might have accepted it as befitting.

"Stranger here, ain'tchu?" Jimmy's neighbor, a dried up little old man,
queried.

"Yes, why?" Jimmy mumbled back.

"Come to stay long?"

"Never can tell," replied Jimmy aloud, and mentally added, "Hope not."

"Goin' inter business?"

"No."

"Lookin' fer a job? I hear as how old Tom Sayers is hirin' all the men
he can git to work on his new buildin's." A moment's wait and then,
"Ain't a bricklayer, be you? You don't look like one. Look more
like--like a feller that don't know much about hard work. Interested in
autymobiles?"

"Yes," said Jimmy, telling the truth.

The old man cackled and said, "By gum! I thought so--I can spot 'em."

"How do you do that?" queried