Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/98

 Paul and Vera arrived at the Riverside shortly after three, just in time to observe a pair of comedians whacking each other frantically with folded newspapers. Vaudeville audiences, originally, had accepted this gesture as funny in itself. Now the humour lay in appreciating the fact that it had once been considered amusing. Paul had notified Campaspe that, as the Brothers Steel were announced to close the bill, she need not, therefore, present herself before four-thirty. He himself, however, had experienced apprehension lest there might be an inversion in the promised order of the program, which would bring on the acrobats before their appointed hour.

Vera was so delighted by the idea of being permitted to go out in the joint company of her husband and Campaspe that she gave the impression of resembling a stout bottle, so charged with soda, the bubbles constantly rising to the top to seek release, that it might explode at any moment.

I know we shall enjoy ourselves, she explained. I haven't been to a vaudeville show for ages.

Paul, too, was in an excellent, withal somewhat grave, mood. They settled themselves in the gilded cane ball-room chairs which furnished the box, with plaster cupids in amorous attitudes presiding symbolically in a great shell above their heads. Vera sought her husband's hand, and he did not withdraw it immediately.