felt very angry at the interruption, and was just about to swallow the wine when I heard an anxious call not to drink. Suspecting something was wrong, I pretended to drink, and deposited the cup on the table. Immediately after the scene I made inquiries about the reason for the caution I received, and was informed that as each night the carpenters, who had no right to it, finished what remained of the wine before the property men, whose perquisite it was, could lay hold of the cup, the latter, to give their despoilers a lesson, had mingled castor-oil with my drink!" A young husband of my acquaintance once bemoaned to me the fact that his wife seemed destined to become a great singer. "She is such a remarkable cook!" he explained to account for his despondency. I reassured him: "She will cook with renewed energy when she begins to sing _Sieglinde_ and _Tosca_.... She will practise _Vissi d'Arte_ over the gumbo soup and _Du herstes Wunder_! while the Frankfurters are sizzling. Her trills, her chromatic scales, and her _messa di voce_ will come right in the kitchen; she will equalize her scale and learn to breathe correctly bending over the oven. It is even likely that she will improve her knowledge of _portamento_ while she is washing dishes. When she can prepare a succulent roast suckling pig she will be able to sing _Ocean, thou mighty monster_! and she will understand _Abscheulicher_ when she understands the mysteries of old-fashioned strawberry shortcake. If you hear her shrieking _Suicidio_! invoking Agamemnon, or appealing to the _Casta Diva_ among the kettles and pots be not alarmed.... For the love you bear of good food, man, do not discourage your wife's ambition. The more she loves to sing, the better she will cook!" _July 17, 1917._ An Interrupted Conversation _"We can never depend upon any right adjustment of emotion to circumstance."_ Max Beerbohm. An Interrupted Conversation