"Come, Arthur," she said, sitting down at it and patting a pile of
music, "I want our friends to hear 'The Toreador.'"
The Cashier looked up protestingly. "You are the one they want to hear,
dear," he declared.
She shook her head. "They've heard me often, but never you, I think.
Besides, it wakes the babies, you know, for me to sing."
"You don't need to sing high notes, Azalea," I urged. "I'd like nothing
so well as the lullaby you sang to the babies."
But she shook her head again. "That's their song," she said. "You were
specially privileged to hear it at all. But I can't do it for company.
Come, Arthur--please."
So the Cashier sang. The Philosopher and I found it necessary to avoid
each other's eyes as he did it. The Cashier could roar 'The Toreador,'
no doubt of that. The voice of the bull of Bashan would have been as the
summer wind in the trees beside it. Where so much volume came from we
could not tell, as we looked at the thin frame of the performer. Why the
babies did not wake up will ever remain a mystery.
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