44 . STRAY-AWAYS 



formance mediocre; he is aware of the value of his 

 opinion, and has bestowed it on those around in a 

 penetrating voice, so that contrary demonstration 

 becomes an impertinence. At the close of the concert, 

 when applause and calls for Grieg have become almost 

 hysterical, he yields sufficiently to the infection to 

 admit that it has been pretty good. Returning home 

 on the tram the art student thinks out many things 

 that she might have said loudly and ambiguously 

 to her friends, things that would have made the 

 American young man regret that he had ever been 

 born into an unappreciative world. 



But already Grieg and the Chatelet are fading into 

 the background of a mind loaded with the problem 

 of whether to buy a tin of sardines and a bunch of 

 radishes for dinner, or a couple of hard-boiled eggs 

 and a penny tart. The Sunday dinner at the restau- 

 rant is not for those who have spent four francs on a 

 concert ; on the altar of the spirit-lamp she must offer 

 an expiatory cup of cocoa to the offended economies, 

 solitary except for the companionship of many pro- 

 menading footsteps under the trees below, or the 

 electric star of the Eiffel, flashing red and green in the 

 dusky sky opposite her window. Even already a 

 piano upstairs has begun to rechcmffer the concert, 

 and for many weeks the din of the Boulevard Mont 

 Parnasse is surmounted by the noise of battle with 

 Grieg's Holberg Suite. 



Martin Ross. 



December 1894. 



