But Jones insists on
taking the innocent blank spaces in my knowledge of the world and
filling them up with the most incorrect data. He tells me, for instance,
that Mme. Finisterra once sang the mad scene from "Lucia" before the
late Sultan of Morocco, who wept so bitterly that the performance was
interrupted lest the monarch should go into convulsions. At the age of
eight Mme. Finisterra knew twelve operatic soprano roles by heart, and
when she was ten she played Juliet to Tamagno's Romeo. She now gets
$10,000 a night, in addition to the service of a maid, a chef, and two
private secretaries. In private life she is very stout. All this,
needless to say, is not true.
But I must not forget the clocks. The worst of the class, oddly enough,
are those found in front of watchmakers' and opticians' shops. I
sometimes think that such clocks are purposely put out of order by the
shop-keeper. The object is apparently to induce irascible old gentlemen
to enter the store, watch in hand, in order to protest against the
maintenance of a public nuisance. It is then a comparatively easy task
to sell them a pair of solid gold spectacles with double lenses at a
handsome profit.
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