Each assured the other that he was worth half-a-dozen of those in the ruck of singers. Each told the other, with perfect candour, he estimated his friend's value at not a penny less than fifty pounds a week. And yet each would there and then have been glad to sign an agreement at five pounds a week. Mr. John Cassidy had no longer any great interest in either of the pair. There was no longer anything to be found out about them. Cassidy was not, in grain, unprincipled or immoral. He did not love mischief for mischief sake. He was simply a feeble, crawling thing. He could not help crawling. But he felt very much pleased at being able to befriend Lavirotte. He owed no grudge to either man. In fact, he felt a certain kind of gratitude to Lavirotte for having once supplied him with a matter in which he took a deep interest. He was still employed at the railway; and the concert, in which Lavirotte sang, was one got up with a view to supplying means of presenting a testimonial to a superannuated servant of the company. There was, of course, no chance of a similar engagement coming Lavirotte's way. Eugene was present that night, and heard his friend sing. In all likelihood there never yet was a tenor absolutely free from jealousy, and Eugene felt he would like to be in Lavirotte's shoes, and he was certain he could have done at least as well as his friend. Nay, if the truth must be told, he was certain he could do better. Lavirotte, on his side, was haunted by an uneasy feeling of the same kind. His success was undoubted; but he knew very well that it was acquired by what Eugene would call noise. He got as much applause as the heart of man could desire. He got two "encores." He was congratulated by the secretary and treasurer to the fund, and at the supper which followed the concert, he sang the "Bay of Biscay" with tremendous power and effect. Eugene was at that supper also, and in response to the chairman's invitation, an invitation suggested by Lavirotte, he sang. Eugene sang "My pretty Jane;" and then, partly because Eugene's tender rendering of the ballad came upon those present as a surprise, and partly because Lavirotte's public performance had prepared them, and partly because Lavirotte's singing was so ill-proportioned to the room in which the supper was given that it hurt, almost, they did not encore Lavirotte, and they did encore Eugene. And then Eugene, with great discretion and modesty, sang no new song, but repeated the last stanza of "My pretty Jane," and sang it gentler than he had at first, singing as though it were a thing of no matter, no effort, as though he could not keep the melody back, but must, in good-humoured ease, let it float from him as a man lets pleasant talk float from him when he is in a careless mood.