The Imp's Matinée
eye and glared stonily at him. The man's mouth opened and he said with some temper, "Oh, darn that circus, anyhow!" Then he disappeared. Act two. The theatre certainly left a great deal to be desired. And darn was a very bad word.
Then absolutely nothing happened, though the audience waited with dogged patience for twenty minutes. Finally he got up and strolled down to the office. The man with the dark eyes that looked somehow very unhappy for all he scowled so fiercely, was blowing rings of smoke through the little opening where you bought the tickets. The Imp confronted him in injured innocence, and sniffed, after the fashion of people who are too old to cry, but who will give way to tears if they are in the privacy of their mother's bedroom. "Is the theatre over?" he asked.
The man stared. "Have you been in there all this time?" he said. "Why, there isn't going to be any play, sonny. There's nobody to play to, you see."
"There's me," said the Imp.
The man coughed. "Yes, there's you," he agreed, "but I'm afraid you won't quite do. The company couldn't be expected to perform, you see,
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