I knew Perkins would have the whole affair planned, elaborated, and developed before he reached the street; that he would have the details of the plan complete before he reached the corner; and that he would have figured the net profit to within a few dollars by the time he reached his destination. I had hardly turned to my desk before my telephone bell rang. I slapped the receiver to my ear. It was Perkins! “Pilly,” he said. “Pilly willy. Pilly willy winkum. Pilliwink! That's it. Pilliwink, Princess of. Write it down. The Princess of Pilliwink. Good-by.” I hung up the receiver. “That is the name of the play,” I mused. “Mighty good name, too. Full of meaning, like 'shout Zo-Zo' and 'Paskala' and--” The bell rang again. “Perkins's performers. Good-by,” came the voice of my great friend. “Great!” I shouted, but Perkins had already rung off. He came back in about half an hour with four young men in tow. “Good idea,” I said, “male quartettes always take well.” Perkins waved his hand scornfully. Perkins could do that. He could do anything, could Perkins. “Quartette? No,” he said, “the play.” He locked the office door, and put the key in his pocket. “The play is in them,” he said, “and they are in here. They don't get out until they get the play out.” He tapped the long-haired young man on the shoulder. “Love lyrics,” he said, briefly. The thin young man with a sad countenance he touched on the arm and said, “Comic songs,” and pointing to the youth who wore the baggiest trousers, he said, “Dialogue.” He did not have to tell me that the wheezy little German contained the music of our play. I knew it by the way he wheezed. Perkins swept me away from my desk, and deposited one young man there, and another at his desk. The others he gave each a window-sill, and to each of the four he handed a pencil and writing-pad. “Write!” he said, and they wrote. As fast as the poets finished a song, they handed it to the composer, who made suitable music for it. It was good music--it all reminded you of something else. If it wasn't real music, it was at least founded on fact. The play did not have much plot, but it had plenty of places for the chorus to come in in tights or short skirts--and that is nine-tenths of any comic opera. I knew it was the real thing as soon as I read it. The dialogue was full of choice bits like,-- “So you think you can sing?” “Well, I used to sing in good old boyhood's hour.” “Then why don't you sing it?” “Sing what?” “Why, 'In Good Old Boyhood's Hour,'” and then he would sing it. The musical composer sang us some of the lyrics, just to let us see how clever they were; but he wheezed too much to do them justice. He admitted that they would sound better if a pretty woman with a swell costume and less wheeze sang them.