"You are the gentleman," she said, "from abroad who has the beautiful niece, and reads old books all night, and talks to mother in the mornings about what London used to be like thirty years ago--the gentleman who promises to go to the theatre to see Miss Verity but never gets nearer than a music hall. Am I right, sir?" she concluded, with an adorably mischievous smile. "Quite right," I said. "We are very extraordinary people, it is clear, and we ought to succeed as duettists." "Yes," she said, "Falconer and Verity--thought-readers and clairvoyants. That sounds all right." "Verity is indeed an inspiration," I added. "It would make the fortune of a palmist." "Oh," she said, "don't make any jokes about my name. I am so tired of them. Punch did it again only last week. Please ring for Mrs.--Mrs.--Duckie," she added, "but before I go I want you to promise me something. Promise me that if I send you a box you will not only come to the theatre but bring your niece too. Will you promise?" I promised, and Mrs. Duckie appearing, the apparition disappeared. Be-trice's illness brought me a second meeting with her illustrious brother Alf Pinto. He looked in to see if she was well enough to be driven to Epping, and by his mother's wish came into my room. I told him that I had heard him at the Frivoli, and he seemed to be as gratified as any other kind of artist would be. "But I've got a better song than any of those," he assured me, and forthwith sang it. I suppose that to be as assured as that is half-way towards the conquest of the world; but for my part I could as easily undress in a crowded drawing-room as sing an unaccompanied song. He fixed me with his bold, roguish eye throughout three long coarse verses and three inane choruses. And without any shame, too; but indeed how could he have shame, for there was none over: I had it all. I had no notion where to look until he had done. "That's a clinker, isn't it?" he said, and his words once more convinced me how needlessly we can suffer for others, for they proved him utterly oblivious to any confusion or want of appreciation on my part. I temporised. "With proper costume and a full band it ought to go very well," I said; and I suppose it would, for the thing was as ugly and tawdry as the people want. Another exposure of marriage. The awakening after the raptures of courtship to the disenchantment of wedded life: the horror of crying twins and a bad-tempered wife and all the rest of it. The cruelty, the hateful ugliness, of this tireless delight in the ruin of the happiest of all human hopes! "Why," I said, "do you always sing this kind of thing? Why is there no song about a happy marriage with some love and trust in it?" "Where's the joke?" he asked. "But surely," I said, "it could be made humorous or amusing enough. Surely there are families that have cheerfulness and gaiety as well as quarrels and poverty and drink. Look at your own father and mother."