Page:Peter Whiffle (1922).djvu/77

 beginning of the second act of Carmen, old gentlemen, nursemaids, painted boys, bankers, Americans, Germans, Italians, South Americans, Roumanians, and Neo-Kaffirs. The carriages, the motors, the buses, formed a perfect maze on the boulevard. In one of the vehicles I caught a glimpse of another acquaintance.

That's Lily Hampton, I noted. She is the only woman who ever made Toscanini smile. You must understand, to appreciate the story, that she is highly respectable, the Mrs. Kendal of the opera stage, and the mother of eight or nine children. She never was good at languages, speaks them all with a rotten accent and a complete ignorance of their idioms. On this occasion, she was singing in Italian but she was unable to converse with the director in his native tongue and, consequently, he was giving her directions in French. He could not, however, make her understand what he wanted her to do. Again and again he repeated his request. At last she seemed to gather his meaning, that she was to turn her back to the footlights. What she asked him, however, ran like this: Est-ce que vous voulez mon derrière, maestro?

Now there was a diversion, an altercation at the further end of the terrasse, and a fluttering of feathered, flowered, and smooth-haired and bald heads turned in that direction. In the midst of this turbulence, I heard my name being called and, looking up, beheld Peter Whiffle waving from the impériale