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true, and seemingly never would.) Once there, he knelt on one knee and rested his banjo on the other and plucked marvelous shoulder-stirring harmony from the strings. And Yvonne stood beside him, with her hands on her hips and her body bent the least bit forward, and sang the Blues in her lovely melancholy voice that so befitted them. Because she had the art to create an illusion of reality, her songs were more than just songs; they were anecdotes set to music, tiny cross-sections of life—her life, you felt. When she sang He Used To Be Yours But I Got Him, she gave you a sense of her personal triumph over an unseen rival and asked you to gloat with her in it. When she sang Don't Think I Care What You Do, she made your own lip curl vicariously. When she sang My Man Went Off and Left Me All Alone, she broke your heart.

At the end she would bow, gracefully, prettily. And Jock would get to his feet and bow also, the jerky bow of an embarrassed small boy at dancing-school . . . and he would laugh a little, as though to say, "You're right—the joke's on me!" He never noticed that the applause swelled in volume at this point, but it always did. Public fancy is a mysterious thing. Professionals may labor years and fail to catch it, and a rank amateur like Jock, all unawares, may call it his on the strength of a bow and a deprecatory grin.

He was having, as he said himself, the time of his life. The work was holiday—not work at all, really, but fun. They appeared only twice in an evening, at nine and again at twelve; and between times, aside from Yvonne's change of costume, there was nothing to do but wait. That also was enjoyable. They waited in the mammoth red-and-black room, where they sat at a corner table, and ate, and watched the eternal Mardi Gras of Terrace Tavern. Jock always thought of a