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Rh a locksmith, had the door opened, and ousted Hauk's belongings and proceeded to personally occupy the prima donna's room. On Minnie Hauk's coming early, as she supposed, to steal a march on her rival, she found Roze had outwitted her.

But one thing was left the fair Minnie to do, and this she did. She went back to her hotel and declared she would not sing a note that night. It was only after the manager and his lawyers had labored with the irate songstress for some two hours that she was finally persuaded to go back to the theater and assume her part, after the opera was one-third finished.  

The composers of previous centuries were largely dependent on the patronage of the titled aristocracy for their support. In those times class lines and distinctions were drawn closer than to-day. The lower and middle classes were more deficient in education and culture. If a composer did not secure the good will of one or more titled patrons, his works went unperformed and he remained unknown and unappreciated.

It was fortunate that the nobility patronized art in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for, had it been otherwise, many a masterpiece would never have seen the light of day. What the Church did for the arts in the dark ages the nobility did in later times.

To-day the artist asks protection of neither Church nor aristocracy. The greatest artists come from the common people—the middle classes—and these same classes do the most to support the artist by admiring, appreciating, and paying for his works.

In Europe painters and sculptors still depend to a great extent on the nobility for patronage, as the nobility holds the preponderance of the wealth of that continent. This will be true as long as the poorer classes are kept