eyes, the Signor suddenly raised his fingers to his throat and sounded a shocking b-r-rr-rrr of alarm and anxiety. Then there arose a murmur, almost pitiful it was so heartfelt, as of bees who fear an irreparable tragedy in the hive. The old[Pg 27] chief came out of the council-house upon the hands of his good-natured sons-in-law, and he was full of tenderness and concern. I saw my friend escorted into his own dwelling by ladies who sighed and commiserated. But already the call for help had reached the tenor's slip of a wife; and she, with hands that shook, was preparing a compress of leaves that smelt of cinnamon and cloves. I, too, showed solicitude, and timidly helped my conqueror to the heaped mats upon which he was wont to recline in the heat of the day. He had made himself a pair of very round terrified eyes, and he had not taken the compress from his throat. But he spoke quietly, and as one possessed of indomitable fortitude. In Malay he told his people that it was "nothing, just a little—brrr—soreness and thickening," and he let slip such a little moan as monkeys make. To me he spoke in Italian. [Pg 27] "I shall have to submit to a bandage," said he. "But there is nothing the matter with my throat" (slight monkey moan here for benefit of adorers), "absolutely nothing. I have invented a slight soreness so—so that you could see for yourself ... so that you could see for yourself.... If you were to count those here assembled and those assembled without, you would number our entire population, including children and babes in arms" (a slight moan while [Pg 28]compress is being readjusted over Adam's apple by gentle, tremulous brown fingers), "and among these, my friend, are no dissenters. There is none here to stand forth and say that on Tuesday night Signor And-he-pronounced-it's singing was lacking in those golden tones for which we used to look to him. His voice, indeed, is but a skeleton of its former self, and shall we say that the public must soon tire of a singer with so pronounced a tendency to flat? [Pg 28] "Here in this climate," he continued, "my voice by dint of constant and painstaking care and practice has actually improved. I should not have said that this was possible; but a man must believe experience.... And then these dear, amiable people are one in their acclaim of me; although I sometimes grieve, not for myself, but for them, to think that they can never really know what they've got...." I sometimes wonder how the god of Prana Beach will be treated when he begins to age and to lose his
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