unique passion. From this point onwards Mr. Prohack lost his head. He
ran to and fro in the bewildering glittering maze of the piece, seeking
for an explanation, for a sign-post, for a clue, for the slightest hint,
and found nothing. He had no alternative but to cling to Eliza Fiddle,
and he clung to her desperately. She was willing to be clung to. She
gave herself, not only to Mr. Prohack, but to every member of the
audience separately; she gave herself in the completeness of all her
manifestations. The audience was rich in the possession of the whole of
her individuality, which was a great deal. She sang, danced, chattered,
froze, melted, laughed, cried, flirted, kissed, kicked, cursed, and
turned somersaults with the fury of a dervish, the languor of an
odalisque, and the inexhaustibility of a hot-spring geyser.... And at
length Mr. Prohack grew aware of a feeling within himself that was at
war with the fresh, fine feeling of physical well-being. "I have never
seen a revue before," he said in secret. "Is it possible that I am
bored?"




III


"Would you care to go behind and be introduced to Miss Fiddle?" Ozzie
suggested at the interval after the curtain had been raised seventeen
times in response to frantic shoutings, cheerings, thumpings and
clappings, and the mighty tumult of exhilaration had subsided into a
happy buzz that arose from all the seats in the entire orange-tinted
brilliant auditorium. The ladies would not go; the ladies feared, they
said, to impose their company upon Miss Fiddle in the tremendous strain