"Not to begin with," said the Idiot. "Just write your choruses and songs, slap in your jokes, fasten 'em together, and the thing is done. First act, get your hero and heroine into trouble. Second act, get 'em out." "And for the third?" queried the Poet. "Don't have a third," said the Idiot. "A third is always superfluous--but if you must have it, make up some kind of a vaudeville show and stick it in between the first and second." "Tush!" said the Bibliomaniac. "That would make a gay comic opera." "Of course it would, Mr. Bib," the Idiot agreed. "And that's what we want. If there's anything in this world that I hate more than another it is a sombre comic opera. I've been to a lot of 'em, and I give you my word of honor that next to a funeral a comic opera that lacks gaiety is one of the most depressing functions known to modern science. Some of 'em are enough to make an undertaker weep with jealous rage. I went to one of 'em last week called 'The Skylark' with an old chum of mine, who is a surgeon. You can imagine what sort of a thing it was when I tell you that after the first act he suggested we leave the theater and come back here and have some fun cutting my leg off. He vowed that if he ever went to another opera by the same people he'd take ether beforehand." "I shouldn't think that would be necessary," sneered the Bibliomaniac. "If it was as bad as all that why didn't it put you to sleep?" "It did," said the Idiot. "But the music kept waking us up again. There was no escape from it except that of actual physical flight." "Well--about this collaboration of ours," suggested the Poet. "What do you think we should do first?" "Write an opening chorus, of course," said the Idiot. "What did you suppose? A finale? Something like this: "If you want to know who we are, Just ask the Evening Star, As he smiles on high In the deep blue sky, With his tralala-la-la-la. We are maidens sweet With tripping feet, And the Googoo eyes Of the Skippity-hi's, And the smile of the fair Gazoo; And you'll find our names 'Mongst the wondrous dames Of the Whos Who-hoo-hoo-hoo. "Get that sung with spirit by sixty-five ladies with blonde wigs and gold slippers, otherwise dressed up in the uniform of a troop of Russian Cavalry, and you've got your venture launched." "Where can you find people like that?" asked the Bibliomaniac. "New York's full of 'em," replied the Idiot. "I don't mean the people to act that sort of thing--but where would you lay your scene?" explained the Bibliomaniac.