Guy Hammersley; or, Clearing his Name — page 81: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

92 GUY HAMMERSLEY. Ward was to go on first and play an overture on the piano, then Mrs. Hammersley was to sing, following whom Ruth would appear with her violin. Next Guy would come with a recitation, then his mother was to sing again, to be succeeded by Ruth’s second appearance and another reading by Guy, the whole to conclude with a lively march by Ward. ‘‘A mighty slim showing,” commented the latter, tapping the elaborately got up ‘‘ bill of the play ” he held in his hand. ‘‘I know I wouldn't give a dollar to get in to hear it. I don't see what's brought all this crowd out.” ‘¢ Oh, they didn’t come to hear ; they came to see what the fifteen-year-old accompanist and the boy orator look like, same as they'd go to gape at freaks in a museum,” and there was more of bitterness than mirth in the laugh with which Guy punctuated his sentence. But now appeared Colonel Starr, announcing that it was time to begin, and, quaking in every limb, Ward stationed himself close to the O. P. entrance, while the imposing impresario, in dress suit and rose in button-hole, went forth to introduce his ‘‘ peerless combination of talent” to a Brilling audience. He soon came back to lead Ward out, and thelatter could actually feel the sensation of disappointment that ran through the hall when he was seen to be a youth of sixteen, holding his head very high and not look- ing in the least like the ‘‘ youthful prodigy ” to which the American stage has lately been treated in such liberal quantities. Not a hand was raised to applaud his entrance, Gomicboo <S) (€() m