Rural person. “—­So I says to the usher, ’If you think I’m a countryman who don’t know what’s what, you’re everlastingly sold.’  ’I’m from Philadelphy,’ says I, ’and we’ve got singers there that can knock spots out of your NILLOGGS and KELSONS and the rest of ’em.’  So he just—­”

Rival manager.  “My tear fellow, you shust mind dis.  Max vill lose all his monish.  Nilsson can’t sing, my tear!  She vanted me to encage her a year ago, but I vouldn’t do it.  Dere ish no monish in her, now you mind vot I says.”

Distinguished teacher.  “You call her an artist!  Why, look here, if one of my scholars were to phrase as wretchedly as she does, I’d never show my face in public again.  Her voice is so-so, but her school is simply infamous.”

Celebrated teacher.  “Well, I don’t mind saying that I never heard her equal in point of quality of voice.  She gives you pure tone, which is what hardly any other singer does.”

Nine tenths of the audience.  “She is perfectly lovely.  There never was anybody like her.”

Connoisseur, (who really does know something about music, but who actually has no prejudices.) “Her voice is such a one as Margaret must have had when she sang by her spinning-wheel, before fate threw her in the way of Faust. And these professional musicians will tear her reputation to pieces among themselves!  Why should musical people be, of all others, most fond of discord?”

Critic.  “There! those fools are determined to make her sing again.  I can’t stand this.  I’ll see Max once more, and if he don’t do the right thing, I’ll say that Nilsson was played out in Europe before she came here, and that she is a complete failure.”

Young man, “Sweetest! may I ask you one question?”

Young lady.  “No, you shan’t.  Will you keep quiet?  Everybody is looking at you.”

Everybody.  “Sh! sh! sh!”

Nilsson sings again.  As her delicious notes die out in the thunder of applause, I make my way out of the Hall, into the clear and silent night.  For not even the witchery of VIEUXTEMPS’S violin is fit to mate in memory with the peerless tones of Nilsson.

Here I meant to do some fine writing, but as this is punchinello, and not the “Easy Chair” of Harper’s Magazine, I conquer the temptation.  Wherefore I accept the gratitude of my readers, and sign myself

Matador.

* * * * *

Congestion at “The Sun.”

Punchinello is pained to know that the circulation of his bewitching contemporary, The Sun, is daily growing more and more languid.  Paralysis has set in, and the patient but seldom has the energy to dictate the daily bulletin giving the state of his circulation.