The dazzling ticket seller, transformed to usher, now led us into the crowded auditorium and down an aisle.  A few rows from the stage she stopped, and, fastening a frigid gaze upon two hapless young women who were seated some distance in from the passageway, bade them emerge and yield their place to us.

Of course we instantly protested, albeit in whispers, as the play was going on.  But the beautiful Olympian lightly brushed aside our objections.

“They don’t belong here,” she declared loftily.  “They’re freshmen—­and they only bought quarter seats.”

Then, as the guilty pair seemed to hesitate, she summoned them with a compelling gesture and the command:  “Come out!”

At this they arose meekly enough, whereupon we redoubled our protests.  But to no purpose.  The Titian-tinted creature was relentless.  Our pleas figured no more in her scheme of things than if they had been babblings in an unknown tongue.  To add to our discomfiture, a large part of the audience seemed to have perceived the nature of our dilemma, and was giving us amused attention.

It was a crisis; and in a crisis—­especially one in which a member of the so-called gentle sex is involved—­I have learned to look to my companion.  He understands women.  He has often told me so.  And now, by his action, he proved it.  What he did was to turn and flee, and I fled with him; nor did we pause until we were safely hidden away in humble twenty-five cent seats at the rear of the chapel, in the shadow of the overhanging gallery.

It is not my intention to write an extended criticism of the performance.  For one thing, I witnessed only a fragment of it, and for another, though I once acted for a brief period as dramatic critic on a New York newspaper, I was advised by my managing editor to give up dramatic criticism, and I have followed his advice.

The scene evidently represented a room, its walls made of red screens behind which rose the lofty pipes of the chapel organ.  On a pedestal at one side stood a bust of the Venus de Milo, while on the other hung an engraving of a familiar picture which I believe is called “The Fates,” and which has the appearance of having been painted by some-one-or-other like Leighton or Bouguereau or Harold Bell Wright.

After we had given some attention to the play my companion remarked that, from the dialect, he judged it to be “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”  I had been told, however, that for certain reasons “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is never played in the South; I therefore asked the young man in front of me what play it was.  He replied that it was Booth Tarkington and Harry Leon Wilson’s comedy, “The Man From Home,” and as he made the statement openly, I feel that I am violating no confidence in repeating what he said—­especially since his declaration was supported by the program which he showed me.

He was a pleasant young man.  Perceiving that I was a stranger, he volunteered the additional information that the masculine roles, as well as the feminine ones, were being played by girls; and I trust that I will not seem to be boasting of perspicacity when I declare that there had already entered my mind a suspicion that such was indeed the case.