The orchestra floor was filled by People.  The boxes contained Persons.  In the galleries was the Foreordained Verdict.  The claque was there as it had originated in the Stone Age and was afterward adapted by the French.  Every Micky and Maggie who sat upon Creary’s amateur bench, wise beyond their talents, knew that their success or doom lay already meted out to them by that crowded, whistling, roaring mass of Romans in the three galleries.  They knew that the winning or the losing of the game for each one lay in the strength of the “gang” aloft that could turn the applause to its favorite.  On a Broadway first night a wooer of fame may win it from the ticket buyers over the heads of the cognoscenti.  But not so at Creary’s.  The amateur’s fate is arithmetical.  The number of his supporting admirers present at his try-out decides it in advance.  But how these outlying Friday nights put to a certain shame the Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and matinees of the Broadway stage you should know . . .

      [Here the manuscript ends.]

[Illustration:  A page from “The Plunkville Patriot”]

ARISTOCRACY VERSUS HASH

      [From The Rolling Stone.]

The snake reporter of The Rolling Stone was wandering up the avenue last night on his way home from the Y.M.C.A. rooms when he was approached by a gaunt, hungry-looking man with wild eyes and dishevelled hair.  He accosted the reporter in a hollow, weak voice.

“’Can you tell me, Sir, where I can find in this town a family of scrubs?’

“‘I don’t understand exactly.’

“‘Let me tell you how it is,’ said the stranger, inserting his forefinger in the reporter’s buttonhole and badly damaging his chrysanthemum.  ’I am a representative from Soapstone County, and I and my family are houseless, homeless, and shelterless.  We have not tasted food for over a week.  I brought my family with me, as I have indigestion and could not get around much with the boys.  Some days ago I started out to find a boarding house, as I cannot afford to put up at a hotel.  I found a nice aristocratic-looking place, that suited me, and went in and asked for the proprietress.  A very stately lady with a Roman nose came in the room.  She had one hand laid across her stom—­across her waist, and the other held a lace handkerchief.  I told her I wanted board for myself and family, and she condescended to take us.  I asked for her terms, and she said $300 per week.

“’I had two dollars in my pocket and I gave her that for a fine teapot that I broke when I fell over the table when she spoke.’

“‘You appear surprised,’ says she.  ’You will please remembah that I am the widow of Governor Riddle of Georgiah; my family is very highly connected; I give you board as a favah; I nevah considah money any equivalent for the advantage of my society, I—­’