to that which Yvette Guilbert must have felt when she unearthed Le cycle du vin, or Le lien serré, or C'est le mai, and he will attempt to find out, probably in vain, something about the composers, Lewis F. Muir, Irving Berlin, and Louis A. Hirsch, the true grandfathers of the great American composer of the year 2001.
There will be difficulties in his way. Nothing disappears so soon from the face of the earth as a very popular song. The music shops sell hundreds of thousands of copies before the demand suddenly ceases. Then, when no more copies are ordered from the publisher, he is likely to lose interest in a song which may occupy space that might be allotted to a newer tune, and he causes the destruction of the plates. As for the purchasers, on every moving day they consign their old popular songs to the dustheap. After the Ball makes way for Two Little Girls in Blue (or vice-versa; I really cannot be expected to remember that far back). Try to buy After the Ball now and see if you can. Advertise for a copy and see if you can secure one. You will find it difficult, I imagine, and yet it was only as far back as 1892, or 1893, that everybody was singing this melancholy tale of the misadventures of a little girl in a big city. No doubt, at that period, kind old ladies stopped on the street to
