Some of Jennings's pupils--not more than two of the forty-odd were in genuine earnest; that is, those two were educating themselves to be professional singers, were determined so to be, had limited time and means and endless capacity for work. Others of the forty--about half-thought they were serious, though in fact the idea of a career was more or less hazy. They were simply taking lessons and toiling aimlessly along, not less aimlessly because they indulged in vague talk and vaguer thought about a career. The rest--the other half of the forty--were amusing themselves by taking singing lessons. It killed time, it gave them a feeling of doing something, it gave them a reputation of being serious people and not mere idlers, it gave them an excuse for neglecting the domestic duties which they regarded as degrading--probably because to do them well requires study and earnest, hard work. The Jennings singing lesson, at fifteen dollars a half-hour, was rather an expensive hypocrisy; but the women who used it as a cloak for idleness as utter as the mere yawners and bridgers and shoppers had rich husbands or fathers. Thus it appears that the Jennings School was a perfect microcosm, as the scientists would say, of the human race--the serious very few, toiling more or less successfully toward a definite goal; the many, compelled to do something, and imagining themselves serious and purposeful as they toiled along toward nothing in particular but the next lesson--that is, the next day's appointed task; the utterly idle, fancying themselves busy and important when in truth they were simply a fraud and an expense.