A Diminuendo.

Otago Witness, Issue 2302, 14 April 1898, Page 52

A Diminuendo.

The Te.\ t ob and His Appetite. Signor Tito Galesti rose late. He had been up la-te the night before. There had been a little affair in his honour after the opera. As he made his toilet he sang. He felt as if he could fill the world with sound; his lungs swelled with force; his shoulders felt strong and his legs firm ; he -was sure his eye was as good a's the best, and his voice Why, as he sang the tears sprang into his eyes, inspired by his own melody. "My stars are high," said Tito Galesti, throwing back his shoulders. "lam a lucky man. My salary is the best on the stage," and he went to keep his appointment with Vernon Brown, who, of all young club men, was the most attentive to him. The critics went as mad over the tenor as society -did. „ . . "I shall be immortal," the tenor would sigh with rapture. He studied very hard, he perfected his technique, and one day in London he venturer to ask Adelina Patti — who is nothing if not goodnatured — what she thought of him. Patti looked at her handso3ne shoe on her handsome foot and frowned. '" The verdict of the people should satisfy you," she said. "Be sure and take plenty of rest, and whatever you do, Galesti, don't eat too much." She touched the singer in a tender spot. He was fond of eating, and he counted abstinence at dinner the, greatest deprivation. . . . There was something the matter with the critics. "Have they all the jaundice this year?"' Tito cried impatiently. " Galesti," said they, "is growing fat. His eyes no longer swim in slumberous dreams. They float, instead, amid greasy wrinkles. His very voice seems to be afflicted with, embonpoint — that A r oice that used to rise like a summer wind in a garden of roses." " Galesti is going to seed grossly," wrote another. "It is evident that he has been | eating too much." | "Damn the fellow! " cried Tito; "and we | have drunk champagne together, and at my expense." He was bitterly hurt, and it tpok two glasses I of absinthe to steady him for work after the i fir,<t of these notices. He never learned to take them with philosophy ; he took them, instead, with absinthe. It had formerly required much diplomacy on his part to refuse importuning managers in a way which would not hurt their managerial sensibilities, but he had to own that the contest for his services was a fierce one. He tried to stand on his dignity ; but dignity and starvation proving to be synonymous, ho took what promised him food for the win-

teiv It was a position as second tenor in a company as yet vinknown to fame. Galesti was seized with a spasm of pride". "I'll not be thrown," he declared. "I shall keep my seat" for all this rearing and baulking which the public is -p leased to indulge in. It has to be given too many oats. It has got to-be broken in. But the public is a free, wild broncho, as Signor Tito found. Besides, there was no drug for the critics. '"Galesti," said they, "is getting a voice as thick as a November fog. Where he listed to be affecting he is now affected. He sings his insignificant part in a. manner which has nothing but its grandiloquence to remind one of former days." It was hard for Galesti to sleep after words of this sort. He even began to lose the appetite whioh had been with, him for 30 years. It was hard, too, for him to accustom himself tD his salary. From London he migrated to the United States.

"These revenue taxes are outrageoiis," lie would mutter angrily, as he paid for his favourite beverage in a Broadway saloon. j One night it chanced that he was not able \ to go on the stage. His understudy sang his j part Avith credit. The next day Galesti received a note from the manager : > " The company is no longer in need of your services, and prefers to keep only such men as can be depended upon." , . . ! It was dusk when ho got outside. He felt \ ii his pockets. He had just enough for a drink. Music was as sure a bait for Tito as a -fly for a salmon. He chose a saloon from which there proceeded a sound of singing. At the end of the room, on a little platform, stood two girls, smirking through a street ballad. ' How much do you pay those girls?" asked Tito of the man behind the bar. " I am Tito Galesti. If you'll pay me enough I'll engage to sing for you for the next month." Tito sang there for the next fortnight. The room was always warm ; there was a free lunch counter, the scent of liquor was comforting, and the bar was bright. ' Tito liked the clink of the glasses ; he liked the hearty laughter, the sawdust on the floor, and the bright tiling on the wall. He even took a sort of pleasure in the heavy picturesque- j ness of the bar-tenders. Best of all he got j all he wanted to drink. ... >. '" Now the lamp is lit," he would say after a glass. But he sang just once too often. I His voice cracked hopelessly. '±ue men j sbouted derisively, and a few of them hissed. I "' Send it home ! " cried a jocular youth. ! " Guess it's all up with you, my friend," i said the proprietor good-naturedly. " I owe you two dollars." "Better keep mum," whispered a cautioxis Scotchman ; " he'll knife somebody." The quivering muscles stood out from Tito's neck. His face was a deep scarlet. It was a convulsion of pride. He raised one large arm in the air, and from his throat there burst a dozen notes of such rare and flute-like beauty that lie stopped himself in wonderment as if to listen. The men shook the building -with applause. Galesti made one more of these terrible j efforts. His chest swelled witli breath : his j face flushed deeper ; he gasped twice, and fell forward, clutching at vacancy. When they turned him over he wa3 dead. — From "Pippins and Cheese," by. Ella W. Peattie. "