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And still Burgess in the seclusion of the homeward bound hansom railed and swore.

“I tell you, Margaret, that girl will ruin us. All the rest are funny. Overwhelmingly, incredibly funny! And pathetic! Could anything be more pathetic! But that awful President strikes a wrong note: Vulgarity. Take her out of it and we’ll have a thing the like of which New York had never seen, for Ophelia is a genius or I miss my guess and all the rest are darlings.”

“But we can’t throw out the President of the club. She must have a part. You have moved her down from Hamlet to Laertes–to the King–“

“I did,” groaned Burgess. “Will you ever forget her rendering of the line, “Now I could do it, Pat,” and then her storming up to me to know “Who Pat was anyway?””

“I do,” laughed Margaret, “and then how you moved her on to Guildenstern and now you have got her down to Bernardo with all her part cut out and nothing except that opening line, “Who’s there?” and the other: “‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.””

“Yes, and she ruins them. I’ve drilled her and drilled her till my throat is sore and still she says it straight through her nose just as though she were delivering an order of ‘ham and’ at her hash battery. Just the same truculent ‘Don’t you dare to answer back’ attitude. She’s impossible. She must be removed.”

Meanwhile the Lady Hyacinths scattering to their different homes discussed their mentor. Ophelia and Horatio and Hamlet were going through Clinton Street together. Ophelia was still at Elsinore but Horatio was approaching common ground again.

“I suppose he’s Miss Masters’ steady,” said he to Hamlet. “He wouldn’t come down here every other night just to help us goils out.”

But Ophelia was better informed. She knew Miss Masters to be engaged to quite another person.

“Then I know,” cried Horatio triumphantly. “He’s stuck on Rosie Rosenbaum. It’s her brings him.”

Ophelia said nothing, and Horatio having experienced an inspiration, set about strengthening it with proof.

“It’s Rosie sure enough. Ain’t he learned her about every part in the play? Don’t he keep takin’ her off in corners an’ goin’ ‘Who’s there, ‘Tis now struck twelve’ for about an hour every night? I wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with a feller that kept company that way, but I s’pose it’s the style on Fifth Avenue. You know how I tell you, Ham, in the play that there’s lots of things goin’ on what you ain’t on to. Well it’s so. None of you was on to Rosie an’ his nibs. You didn’t ever guess it did you ‘Pheleir?”

“No,” admitted Ophelia. “No, I never did.”

“Well it’s so. You watch ’em. The style in wives is changin’. Actresses is goin’ out an’ the ‘poor but honest workin’ goil’ is comin’ in. One of our salesladies has a book about it. “The Bowery Bride” its name is. All about a shop goil what married a rich fellow and used to come back to the store and take her old friends carriage ridin’. If Rosie Rosenbaum tries it on me, I’ll break her face. If she comes round me,” cried the Prince’s fellow student: “with carriages and a benevolent smile, I’ll claw the smile off of her if I have to take the skin with it!”

When Horatio and Hamlet left her, she wandered disconsolate, down to the river. But no willow grows aslant that brook, no flowers were there with which to weave fantastic garlands.

“I’ve gone crazy all right,” said poor Ophelia as she watched the lights of the great bridge, “but I don’t drown myself until Scene VII. And I’m goin’ up to his house to-morrow night to learn to act crazy. I guess I don’t need much learning.”

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