After a hurried Automat luncheon she proceeded to a crosstown street, the address of which she had read in the newspapers. The window displayed this sign, “Professor Erasmus Brick, Voice Builder.” He was a burly gentleman, the Prof. His linen was not irreproachable, his forehead looked like a mansard roof, and his eyes were shrewd. She named her errand, confided her doubts, hinted at the poverty of her purse. He laughed, and his voice restored her courage, if not her confidence. “My dear Miss, cast your eye round this room and see if I have a piano, a looking-glass, a pulsometer, or any other foreign fiddle-faddle of those Signors or Fraus. I build the voice up into the perfect thing the good Lord intended it to be, and without any extry fixin’s or bricks and mortar. The job is simple if you know how. All this gabble about vocal registers and nasal emission makes me tired. I build up a voice on the word ‘Moo’; jest keep ’em right at that word till the old cow--so to speak--dies of the tune. While you sing I work this pocket-fan. I use it to fan away the breath as you sing ‘Moo.’ By this means the lungs are unobstructed and the voice grows of its free accord. My theory is that the breath kills the voice--Moo!” Elvina passed out, and in the hall a phonograph hoarsely sang: “Do, re, mi, fa, sol. Five dollars. Please put the cash on the mantelpiece.” “That’s a dollar a note,” she calculated. She paid, and her bank-roll became ominously slender. She found Mlle. Pinson in her apartment, small, stuffy, crowded with rickety furniture, books, china, music, even a parrot. The lady was drinking chocolate. “V’là, Mamselle! I’ve purchased a frugal meal, is it not? I diet myself as carefully as in the days when I was leading soprano at the Grand Opera. Hélas! those miserable days when I was so happy. Oh, Paris! Now sing ‘la,’ Mamselle. No, no, louder, please. C’est bon. You must know that when you sing correctly the vibrations travel to the knee-caps. I test them and know exactly if the tone is formed naturally or not. My vibratory system is the only true one. Yes, twenty dollars will be enough for this time. You have a sweet voice, my dear, and I’ll make a great singer of you in five years.” Elvina faintly asked: “When do I begin on songs?” “What! Songs? Ah! those Americans, they are always in a hurry, what you call get rich in a week! My child, you can’t hurry art. Bonsoir, Mamselle! To-morrow at nine, precisely, and I’ll test your knee-caps. Take one of my pamphlets. Vibration, vibration, vibration!” The parrot opened its beak: “Vibration, vibration, vibration. I’m in for life, chérie. Take me out of jail, chérie.” Elvina sat in a Madison Avenue tram and read the booklet of Mlle. Mimi Pinson, entitled Hygiene for Voiceless Singers. Numerous rules and “Don’ts,” ending with, “Don’t marry. Husbands of opera-singers always collect their wives’ salaries. Vibrate when you breathe. You may achieve fame and happiness. Think blue! It is the color of hope.