Читать книгу A Battle for Right; Or, A Clash of Wits онлайн

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It was this latter class that offered a round of encouraging handclaps to a delicate-looking young girl, dressed simply in white, with a white ribbon in her long, dark hair, who came slowly into view and faced the footlights.

“What’s comin’ off?” growled a rough-looking man near the stage. “Where did this kid blow in from?”

“Guess she belongs to a Sunday school, and got in here by mistake,” guffawed another of the same type. “Why didn’t old Joe Stokes give us an extra encore? This girl turn is goin’ to be punk, an’ I know it.”

The girl was evidently frightened, as if not accustomed to singing in public. She may not have heard exactly what these men were saying. But she had caught the note of unfriendliness, and she turned appealingly to the quarter whence had come the applause of the tourists.

There were, perhaps, a dozen men and women, who belonged to the tourist party, sitting apart from most of the other persons in the audience, and they gave the young girl another round of handclapping, accompanied by the rattling of glasses on the table.