THE MAIDEN AND THE TENOR.
Mr. Troubadour Ambleleg was a tenor. He waved his light voice for a
light salary in the chorus of an unexpensive opera company that made
the summer months of 1881 and the opera air of the West End of St.
Louis melodious to a sometimes quite harassing degree. His soul was as
full of art as his throat was of music. He doted upon the beautiful
wherever he came in contact with it, and frequently, when he heard of
beauty lying around in languid looseness in any direction, he went
out of his way to find it. It was in this manner he became acquainted
with Miss Silica Justaytine. She was the belle of an upperly upper
circle, a glowing, brown-eyed maiden, with sun-kissed hair, and the
sweetest smiles that ever played in Polar-light style over the ruffs
and ruchings of an expensive toilet. Indeed, an aurora borealis of
glinting good nature shone upon the horizon of her lips, and a single
glance of her eye was worth more to a man in love than the advent of a
sprinkling cart to a traveller perishing of thirst on a dry and burning
desert. When Mr. Ambleleg saw Miss Justaytine, that pink of beauty and
perfection of belleship, gracing a front bench, where the susceptible
tenor was nightly airing his voice at a salary of ten dollars a week,
their eyes met and their loves at once intertwined. Like Tecetl,
the daughter of Montezuma, who found in the yellow-haired warrior,
Alvarado, the lover she had dreamt of long before the prow of the
"fair god's" vessel touched the shores of Mexico, the super-æsthetical
maiden of my story saw in the chorus singer the affinity for which
she had long looked and sighed. Mr. Ambleleg, too, at once became
aware that in Miss Justaytine he had met his fate. They smiled, and
sighed, and ogled, and encouraged each other across the foot-lights.
The chorus singer forgot all the other maiden beauty that flourished
under the foliage, and there were crushed and trampled hearts lying in
the chasm across which Ambleleg and Miss Justaytine exchanged their
affections. But Ambleleg did not mind it. He had learned that Miss
Justaytine was the queen of her circle, and he determined to share her
crown with her. Now, Ambleleg was not wealthy; neither was he rich in
prepossessing features. His teeth were freckled, his mouth was big,
his forehead small, his eyes expressionless, his hair of a buttery
yellow, his moustache vapid, his shirt calico, and usually required
to do long service without washing, while his general appearance was
not extravagantly pleasant, and certainly not over-abundant in that
grace and ease for which pretty girls have, at all times, a fondness.
Therefore, it was surprising that Miss Silica Justaytine fell in love
with the chorus-singing tenor. But she did so, and, it seems, fell so
deeply into admiration of himself and his voice, that she could not
have done better had she made the start, in falling, from the top of a
seven-story house. When love is once kindled in the glow of a pair of
admiring eyes, look out for a conflagration in the neighborhood of the
pericardium. Night after night, as the moon washed the tree tops with
waves of silver, and the leaves rustled their whispers to each other,
Miss Silica Justaytine sat in the front row, either joining with the
chorus of æsthetic maidens in "Patience" in singing to her own ideal
_Bunthorne_,--
Turn, oh turn in this direction,
Shed, oh shed a gentle smile;
With a glance of sad perfection
My poor fainting heart beguile!
On such eyes as maidens cherish
Let thy fond adorer gaze,
Or incontinently perish
In their all-consuming rays.
Or following _Bettina_ through the mazes of the "Mascotte" gobble song,
while she had a _Pippo_ of her own in mind all the time. Ambleleg
noticed this growing affection, and sang all the louder, and all
the wilder, to the great endangerment of the performances. At last
Miss Silica Justaytine left him a token of her love--a soft, white
rose, which she kissed and placed in her chair as she departed one
evening. Ambleleg cleared the stage at a bound, secured the creamy
flower, pressed it to his lips and over his calico shirt bosom, after
which he carefully stowed it away in a pocket-book with his wash and
board-bills. The following day Miss Silica Justaytine was toying
with a $10,000 necklace in the bay window of her palatial residence
on Pinafore Avenue, when the postman handed her a letter in a yellow
envelope. It was from Ambleleg. She blushed as she looked at it, then
opened and read it, smiled and floated gracefully up to an escritoire,
where she indited a charming little note on pink monogram paper with
heavy gold edges, and placed it in one of the nattiest and most
scrumptious envelopes you ever saw. Ambleleg read that note that very
night to a group of wide-eyed and open-mouthed chorus singers. It
invited him to call on Miss Justaytine the next day. The call was made.
Miss Silica Justaytine received Ambleleg at the front door, and led him
to the magnificent parlor as graciously as if he were a prince.
"My _Pippo_!" she cried, as she flung her arms around his neck, and
almost knocked over the piano stool.
"My _Bettina_!" sighed the tenor, as he pressed her to his glowing
bosom.
After the first agony of meeting they sat down and told the stories of
their love. Cruel fate had dealt harshly with both. One was already
engaged to be married; the other would not begin to have a ghost of a
show at monogamy if wives were to be had at ten cents a dozen. Miss
Justaytine was betrothed to Mr. Praymore, a young man who had hopes
of coming into a fortune some day or other, providing he survived the
parent who accumulated it. Mr. Ambleleg was impecunious; still she said
she could scrape up enough to buy him a suit of clothes and a box of
tooth-powder, and then they might fly together as far as East St. Louis
anyhow. Miss Justaytine was to become a wandering minstrel's bride. She
took the $5,000 diamond engagement ring Mr. Praymore had given her,
from her finger, and put on a $2 imitation amethyst that the chorus
singer gave her. What simple, pure, and unselfish love.
But the course of true love is as rough as the rocky roads in Dublin.
Not content with wandering under his inamorata's window every night
wasting his breath in whistling Sullivan's music to pieces, while
_Bettina_ opened the shutters of the third-story window and softly
sang,--
For I mi-hy turkey's love,
to which _Pippo_ melodiously responded,--
And I my shee-eep love.
After which there was a mixture of "gobble, gobble, gobble," and
"ba-a-a-ahs." Not content with this innocent and artistic way of
amusing himself while he kept people awake for blocks around, Ambleleg
very indiscreetly boasted of his success, and exhibited Miss Silica
Justaytine's notes and photographs to indiscriminate crowds. One day
he met Mr. Praymore and a prize-fighting brother of Miss Justaytine
in the street. This brother had done yoeman's service in the 24-foot
ring, and required but slight provocation to disturb the claret in a
nose so inviting as that which decorated the middle of Mr. Ambleleg's
face. By the free use of whiskey punches these young men finally
inveigled Ambleleg into a deep and dark cellar where they proceeded to
touch him up with fists and feet that he might not be able to identify
himself again. After materially spoiling his appearance, they made
themselves presents of the photographs and letters which they found
in his possession, gave him a few parting touches, and then went away
to prepare an official statement of their side of the case. Ambleleg
now had no more use for the Justaytine mansion, or the Justaytine
beauty, so he made up his mind to heal his heart and his bruises with
a $10,000 balm. For this purpose he went into court. Miss Silica had
winged herself away to the Rosebud Sulphur Springs, and was not aware
of the fame herself and her chorus singer were achieving at home.
Ambleleg hired him two lawyers to plead his cause, and then there was a
great uproar all over the country. The papers busied themselves about
the matter very much, and impudently published all the details that
they could get hold of. Quite natural it was that when Miss Silica
Justaytine arrived at the Rosebud Sulphur Springs, the fashionable and
celebrated beauties there should be so jealous of her triumph over a
chorus singer, that they were sparing of their attentions and cutting
in their remarks. Some of the same envious ones had had food for
gossip a season or two before over Miss Silica Justaytine's capture
of a $15,000,000 ex-Presidential candidate. That a woman should range
all the way from a Presidential candidate to a chorus singer, was
unusual and interesting. So unpleasant did the gossiping souls at
Rosebud Sulphur Springs make it for Miss Silica Justaytine, that she
hastened back to the more congenial atmosphere of her home on Pinafore
Avenue. In the meantime, her prize-fighting brother and Mr. Praymore
had, with the same courage that impelled them to decoy Mr. Ambleleg
into a cellar, and beat him, and draw a Gatling gun on him, fallen
down on their knees before Miss Silica Justaytine and asked her to
plead their cause. She consented, and by a swift-footed courier sent
Ambleleg a message accompanied by the talismanic words, "_Pippo_" and
"Amethyst." He stopped smoking a five-cent cigar and rushed out to the
Justaytine mansion like a fire-engine pursued by an insurance man. His
lawyer seized his coat-tail and followed, the two arriving there out of
breath, the one bent on money, the other called by the sweet voice of
love.
"Oh, _Pippo_!"
"Oh, _Bettina_!"
This was the salutation that fell from the two lovers as their eyes
melted into each other.
"_Pippo_, you have sued my prize-fighting brother and my ostensible
lover for $10,000. They are short of cash just now and cannot
conveniently pay. Please cut down the amount just a little bit, dear
_Pippo_. For the sake of this amethyst (shows him the ring) I beg of
you cut it down," said she.
"I'll cut it down, _Bettina_," he said, "but I do it only for your
sweet dear sake."
"How much?" she asked.
"All I want," he answered, "is enough to buy a silver watch, a new
suit of clothes, pay my board and wash bill, get me three cigars for
ten cents, and take me home to my mother. I think I can get along with
$500."
"Is that all?" the charming and delighted creature inquired.
"Not quite all," put in Ambleleg; "the two lawyers I have hired cannot
be assuaged with less than $500. We three--that is, the two lawyers and
myself--want $500 apiece. Thus you see I cut the $10,000 down $8,500,"
and he jammed his thumbs into the arm-holes of his vest and assumed the
attitude of a man who could lose that amount in a game of poker every
day in the week and never feel the loss.
"Oh, _Pippo_, you are so good to reduce so liberally," said Miss
Justaytine, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him in a
wild and irresponsible way.
Thus the interview ended, and as Ambleleg ambled down the front steps
Miss Silica Justaytine sat down at her piano, ecstatically thrummed it
and enthusiastically sang:--
A feather-headed young man,
A goosey-goosey young man,
An utterly looney, much too-sooney,
Swallow-the-bait young man.
The lawyers subsequently fixed the matter up among themselves, and
Ambleleg, after getting a few dollars and a new pair of heavy-soled
shoes, struck out nobly for the home of his mother. When last heard
from he still had a good chorus voice and was helping to fill in the
intervals of comic opera with his low and gentle howl.
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