Cosimo looked blank. "But, my dear--I'm afraid I didn't catch your name----," he said. "Crabtree--Eli Crabtree. This is t' point I want to mak', mister. Ye see, I can't put things grammar; but there's lots about 'at can; so I thowt we'd get a sec'etary, an' I'd sit an' smoke whol' my thowts come, and then I'd tell him t' tale. Ye see, ye want to go slap into t' middle o' t' lives o' t' people. Now comin' up o' t' tram-top I bethowt me of a champion series: '_Back to Back Houses I've Known_.' I'll bet a crahn that wi' somb'dy to put it grammar for me----" "My dear Crabtree, I'm afraid, don't you know, that there's been some mistake----" And at this point, everybody becoming conscious at the same moment that they were listening, a fresh wave of sound flowed over the assembly; and presently Mr. Wilkinson was seen to take Cosimo aside and to be making the gestures of a man who is explaining some ridiculous mistake. Then once more:-- "I beg your pardon--I thought you were Mrs. Pratt----" "Put grammar--straight to fowk's hearts--sinks and slopstones an' all t' lot----" "No, Balliol----" "But listen, Pratt, the way the mistake arose----" "Ellen Key, of course----" "The 'Times!'--As if the 'Times' wasn't _always_ wrong!----" "There's a raucousness about her paint----" "The Caxton Hall, at eight--do come!----" "But we authors are so afraid of sentiment nowadays!----" "Bombay, I think--or else Hyderabad----" "Oh, he talks like a fool!----" "Raff! Come here and recite '_The King is Duller_'----" "But Love _is_ Law!----" "Suspend our judgments until we've heard the other side----" "Only water--but they couldn't break her spirit--she was out again in three days----" And again there came an unexpected lull. This time it was broken by, perhaps not the loudest, but certainly the most travelling voice yet--the voice of the caryatid beneath the bracket with the bust upon it. Miss Belchamber was dressed in a sleeveless surcoat chess-boarded with large black and white squares; the skirt beneath it was of dark blue linen; and there were beards of leather on her large brown brogues. One of the young Oxford men, greatly daring, had approached her and asked her a question. She turned slowly; she gave the young man the equal-soul-to-equal-soul look; and then the apparatus of perfect voice-production was set in motion. Easily and powerfully the air came from her magnificent chest, up the splendid six-inch main of her throat, rang upon the hard anterior portion of her palate, and was cut, as it were, to its proper length and shaped into perfect enunciation by her red tongue and beautiful white teeth. "What?" she said. The undergraduate fell a little back. "Only--I only asked if you'd been to many theatres lately." "Not any." "Oh!... I--I suppose you know everybody here?" "Yes." "Do point them out to me!"