VIEUXTEMPS plays, and the audience listens with the air of people who are dreadfully bored, but are afraid to show it.  He disappears with an amount of applause carefully graduated so as to express enthusiasm without the desire for hearing him again.  The Rural Person remarks that “he doesn’t think much of fiddlers anyhow.  Give him a trombone, or a banjo, for his money.”

Mr. WEHLI then trifles with the piano.  Him, too, the audience politely endure, but plainly do not appreciate.  They have come to hear Nilsson, and feel outraged at having to hear anybody else.  A cornet solo by the Angel Gabriel himself would be secretly regarded as undoubtedly artistic, but certainly a little out of place.

Chorus of rival piano-makers.  “What a wretched instrument that poor fellow is made to play upon.  Nobody can produce any effect on a Steinway piano.  It’s good for nothing but for boarding-school practice.”

Critic, (who knows Mr. Steinway.) “Anybody can please people by playing on a Steinway.  I defy WEHLI or any other man to play badly on such a superb instrument as that.”

Young man.  “Dearest!  Do you remember the day when you gave me one of your hair-pins?  I have worn it next my—­”

Young lady.  “Oh, don’t bother.  Nilsson is just going to sing.”

And she does sing, with that voice so matchless in its perfect purity, that even the disappointed critic grows uneasy as he tries in vain to find some reasonable fault with it.  She ceases, and amid wild cheers from the paying part of the audience, silent approval from the deadheads, and shouts of “Hooroo!” and “Begorra!” from the Scandinavian Society, MAX’S flowers are brought in solemn procession up the aisle, and laid at the feet of the Improved Nightingale.

Critic.  “Those flowers will just be taken out of the back door, and brought in again to be used the second time.  There’s a hand-cart waiting for them now, at the Fifteenth Street entrance.”

Six Prime Donne, (who were not asked to sing at the NILSSON concerts.) “Well, did you ever hear ‘Angels Ever Bright’ sung in a more atrocious style?  If that is NILSSON’s idea of expression, the sooner she leaves the stage to artists, the better.”

Cynical old musician.  “Bah!  Nilsson infuses religious sentiment into her singing, and these envious creatures don’t know what religious sentiment is, so they think she is all wrong.  If she had sung Handel with a smile, and a coquettish tossing of her head, they would still have hated her, but they would not have ventured to call her “inartistic."”

Young man.  “Darling!  I had rather hear your sweet voice, than listen to Nilsson or a choir of angels for the rest of my—­”

Young lady.  “Charles, you will drive me wild, with your intolerable spooniness.  I’ll never come out with you again.  See how the Smith girls are looking at you.”