It is yours, Talbot, if you can define a tune." _Tal._ "A tune is--everybody knows what." _Lady Bar._ "A tune is a tune, that is what you meant to say." _Tal._ "Of course it is." _Lady Bar._ "Be reasonable, Ipsden; no man can do two things at once; how can the pupil of Herz condemn a thing and know what it means contemporaneously ?" _Ips._ "Is the drinking-song in 'Der Freischutz' a tune ?" _Lady Bar._ "It is." _Ips._ "And the melodies of Handel, are they tunes ?" _Lady Bar.

(pathetically)._ "They are! They are!" _Ips._ "And the 'Russian Anthem,' and the 'Marseillaise,' and 'Ah, Perdona' ?" _Tal._ "And 'Yankee Doodle' ?" _Lady Bar._ "So that Sir Henry, who prided himself on his ignorance, has a wide field for its dominion." _Tal._ "All good violin players do like me; they prelude, not play tunes." _Ips._ "Then Heaven be thanked for our blind fiddlers.

You like syllables of sound in unmeaning rotation, and you despise its words, its purposes, its narrative feats; carry out your principle, it will show you where you are.

Buy a dirty palette for a picture, and dream the alphabet is a poem." _Lady Bar., to herself._ "Is this my cousin Richard ?" _Hither._ "Mind, Ipsden, you are a man of property, and there are such things as commissions _de lunatico."_ _Lady Bar._ "His defense will be that his friends pronounced him insane." _Ips._ "No; I shall subpoena Talbot's fiddle, cross-examination will get nothing out of that but, do, re, mi, fa." _Lady Bar._ "Yes, it will; fa, mi, re, do." _Tal._ "Violin, if you please." _Lady Bar._ "Ask Fiddle's pardon, directly." _Sound of fiddles is heard in the distance._ _Tal._ "How lucky for you, there are fiddles and tunes, and the natives you are said to favor, why not join them ?" _Ips.

(shaking his head solemnly)._ "I dread to encounter another prelude." _Hither._ "Come, I know you would like it; it is a wedding-party--two sea monsters have been united.