XVI
THE SONG AND THE SERGEANT
HALF a dozen people supping at a table in one of the upper-Broadway all-night restaurants were making too much noise. Three times the manager walked past them with a politely warning glance; but their argument had waxed too warm to be quelled by a manager’s gaze. It was midnight, and the restaurant was filled with patrons from the theatres of that district. Some among the dispersed audiences must have recognized among the quarrelsome sextet the faces of the players belonging to the Carroll Comedy Company.
Four of the six made up the company. Another was the author of the comedietta, “A Gay Coquette,” which the quartette of players had been presenting with fair success at several vaudeville houses in the city. The sixth at the table was a person inconsequent in the realm of art, but one at whose bidding many lobsters had perished.
Loudly the six maintained their clamorous debate. No one of the party was silent except when answers were stormed from him by the excited ones. That was the comedian of “A Gay Coquette.” He was a young man with a face even too melancholy for his profession.
