ings.

For example, all will remember the throbbing moment at the end of the
drama, where the hero and heroine, murmuring "At last!" fall into each
other's arms and move slowly off the stage whilst the band starts
up MENDELSSOHN'S or GLUeCKSTEIN'S "Wedding March." The effect on an
orchestra is immediate and immense. Somewhere behind each of these
stiff shirt-fronts beats a heart that thrills at every suggestion of
romance. It is well known that, when at intervals during a performance
they retire through the man-hole under the stage, it is to imbibe
another chapter of ETHEL M. DELL or of "Harried Hannah, the Bloomsbury
Bride." And so the lingering embrace of the lovers sets them tingling
and they tackle the "Wedding March" at the double. The clarionet
(or clarinet) wipes the tears from his eyes and puts a sob in his
rendering; the cornet unswallows his mouthpiece and, getting his
under-jaw well jutted out, decides to put a jerk in it; the piccolo
pickles with furious enthusiasm; the 'cello puts his instrument in
top-gear with his left hand and saws away violently with the other;
the triangle, who has fallen perhaps into a Euclidian dream, sits
up and gets a move on; the stevedore--no, no, that is the next
chapter--the oboe, the French horn, the kettledrum, the euphonium, the
proscenium, the timbrel, the hautboy, the sackbut-and-ashes--all get a
grip of the ground with both feet and let her go.

They try to depict golden lands of radiant sunshine, where beautiful
couples stroll hand-in-hand for ever and the voice of the turtle
replaces that of the raucous vendor of the racing edition.

If they were allowed to have their way the effect on the unmarried
portion of the audience would be to send them rushing out of the
theatres and dragging registrars out of a sick-bed in order to perform
the marriage ceremony there and then.

But the trombone introduces the hard practical note, the necessary
corrective. His monotonous grunt is used to remind the audience of
marriage as it is lived in real life, of the girl at breakfast in
unmarcelled hair, of the man dropping cigarette-ash on the best
carpet, of double income-tax, of her family, of his, of her bills for
frocks, of his wandering off to golf or the club, and a host of other
incidentals.

A reaction takes place among the audience. Men who had been a moment
before estimating the price of a diamond-ring turn their thoughts to
two-stroke motor-bicycles, and girls decide that