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The room was both cold and close; a jet of gas, which continually menaced the heads of the performers, shed a coarse illumination; the mouth-organ sounded shrill and dismal; and the faces of all concerned were church-like in their gravity.

Birch, who had just slipped into the room, joined in the merriment. "There you are," chuckled Jeff. "That's what you get when you give the donkey the solo part among the farmyard performers." "He can sing as well as the peacock," retorted Just, with spirit. "We were right in the middle of the 'Hungarian Intermezzo," explained Celia to the newcomers.

During the whole of the time that the prostrations were practising, the attendants were dancing in a circle, with now and then the interlude of a minuet by one of the performers, in the course of which he would frequently throw a somerset, as expert as old Grimaldi, and all this under a burning tropical sun.

In good sooth they were big enough, and perhaps, as the saying is, ugly enough, to be the most correct of all mechanical performers; in Mr Pinch's eyes, however they were smaller than Geneva ware; and when he saw one very bloated watch announced as a repeater, gifted with the uncommon power of striking every quarter of an hour inside the pocket of its happy owner, he almost wished that he were rich enough to buy it.

Whenever Andalusians mean to make merry some one will certainly bring a guitar, or if not the girls have their castanets; and though even these are wanting and no one can be induced to sing, a rhythmical clapping of hands will be sufficient accompaniment, and the performers will snap their fingers in lieu of castanets.

The brightening of their faces told that their work as performers was more to their liking than their position as auditors. They threw back their heads and waited with well-disciplined eagerness for the signal to begin. Then, with the strength and native music there are in some three hundred boys' throats, there rolled out the words of the song of the State.

When the skaters came on, the members of the theatre party rose in their seats and pelted the performers with paper snowballs made hard by the liberal use of paste. The police were called in. Quincy and Tom had taken no part in the snowballing but, as examination showed their pockets were full of the substitutes for the natural product, they were adjudged as guilty as the others.

His head was bare, and he had a long white beard. His feet were bare, too, and he wore leather sandals. A rope was tied about his waist. Gigi had sometimes seen men so dressed plodding along the highroad or begging from the townsfolk. If he thought about them at all, he believed them to be some rival sort of performers, like the Tumblers themselves.

However, he seemed so genuinely pleased with what had taken place that neither of the principal performers could be angry with him for listening. "I'm downright real glad," said he after a bit, congratulating them both and wringing poor Frank's hand well nigh off in the exuberance of his delight.

Rousseau's opera, "Le Devin du Village," was performed with considerable success, in spite of the repugnance of the orchestral performers, of whom Rousseau always spoke in terms of unmeasured contempt, to do justice to the music. They burned Rousseau in effigy for his scoffs.