It must have been a month after our interview that Miss Crow again visited me. I was at the time assistant professor of applied paleontology, and mightily interested in the psychic life of micro-organisms, so naturally singers came first on the list. Into my large and sympathetic tympani Elvina poured a tale, not of woe, but of thrilling truth. This is not the first time I have related it, yet it improves on repetition, just because of its probability. Not discouraged by my slurring, even portamento, criticism of her voice, the lone girl bravely started to find out the truth herself; the real test of character. She said that her first experience was in the studio of a maestro. She had a letter to him which he barely read. In a rich Italian brogue he bade her be seated. He wore a velvet jacket. He was bald. He smoked cigarettes. The type was perfect. “I giva da lesson in fiva minuta,” he explained, and then scowled at a tall girl who faced a mirror in a guilty manner as her eyes computed the possible value of the newcomer’s gown. “Must I sit here like a fool?” the professor angrily demanded. His pupil opened her mouth. Elvina eagerly listened. But no sound escaped the lips of the other girl. She gazed into the mirror and mouthed and grimaced, and almost, though not quite, formed words. “Faster,” cried the teacher at the keyboard. The student’s lips moved like a praying mill; she clicked her teeth castanet fashion; and at last with a wild bang on the keyboard the voiceless aria ended. The maestro knitted his dyed eyebrows. “Vara fair, not presto assai. You sing without expression. You are too cold--what shall I call it?” A husky voice asked: “Shall I try it over again?” “Dio mio! girl, how dare you speak after singing such a difficult aria from Rossini’s Cinderella? Your vocal pores are open, you perspire with your lungs--pouf! You die of the inflammatus by, by”--he impatiently pulled at his large nose. “The Inflammatus by Rossini, you mean!” interposed Elvina. “How? No, no, ah! by pneumonia, that’s it.” And he bustled from the instrument. Throwing an old bearskin rug over his speechless singer, he led her to a chair, admonishing her: “Now perspire!” She coughed in a terrifying way while the maestro imperturbably explained his method to Elvina. He did not permit his pupils to open their mouths for a year, during which time he put them through a severe throat and lung drill. All songs were given in vocal miming, with due facial expression, and the ventriloquist was adduced as the highest type of masterly vocal control, for a ventriloquist can sing in his stomach without moving a muscle of his face. Think of Fred Stone and his Very Good Eddie. The Signor became eloquent. Had the young Miss Elvina--Corpo di Baccho! what a pretty name!--had she a little money for tuition? One thousand dollars. Dirt cheap. A second Patti she would become for the money. Sign a contract with him for ten years. Then the movies for a year so that her stage