The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-30
A Store of Great Values

',Just one more matinee and one more evening performance and the music fes- tival will be a thing of the past,' said the girl in Alice Blue to the girl i'll Ashes of Roses, as they chatted over box of Huyler's, in the interval Of yes terday's matinee programme.
 q am terribly sorry, for l have en- joyed every single performance and have certainly learned many things~about the status of music in Birmingham that I haven't known before"
 Ashes of Roses was promptly sym pathetic with Alice Blue in her observa- tions and the talk drifted along the lines of favorite directors and the rival merits of each mentioned, and such kindred topics until Alice Blue, grown egotistic once more, said enthusiastically:
 Music has had new interest for me since I knew that there was to be a festival. Not only have I attended each performance with the idea of hearing the music but each time have resolved to discover some definite facts about the audiences. Classifying types Is great snort and the music festival Is quite an apropos place to study them ad lib- itum.
 "Is that the reason you chose our seats way up here in the very top or the house? It reminds me of the way l used to go to the opera in New York and sit in the fifth balcony of the Metropoli- tan with the macaronis and the spaghet- tis, as I called them,' said Ashes or Roses.
 Exactly" laughingly responded Alice Blue. q find that most of the people or like temperament as myself occupy the balcony seats. They are modestly dressed and intent on the music; fairly well in formed in the matter of score and libret- to, and in short they are not wildly exciting one way or another, and that Is exactly the surrounding I am looking for"
 well, you are modest, considering you are reputed to be one of the best edu- cated and finest musicians in town," said Ashes of Roses. "But that is an element of true greatness-to feel that you know absolutely nothing"
 "Now look over there," said Alice Blue ."rhere is a definite type, grown only in top-balcony soil. Never seen in the or chestra chairs or the boxes, and I have labeled her the music-mad enthusiast"
 .'You mean that gaunt looking person with the un-pompadoured coiffure. and the queer looking frock?' asked Ashes of Roses.
 ''Yes," answered Alice Blue. ''Watch her take off her bonnet and jam those funny little black headed hatpins into 1t; then fold her jacket and put it under meath the seat: take off her serviceable gloves and open her score. and now she is ready"
 T suppose she would rather hear the Peer Gynt Suite or tine slow movement from the Dvorak American symphony than go to the swellest social function ever given" observed Ashes of Roses
 Don't be silly" said Alice Blue 'Drhe wave of orchestral harmony to her ears is more satisfying than all the parties ever given or the most gorgeous crea- tions that the smartest atiliers in the Rue de la Paix could ever turn out. Look now how her forehead is puckered and her eyelids are straining. Her at tention is at fever heat, the music-mad enthusiast is in her clement
 "she is the kind that at the opera wouldn't care whether Romeo or Lohen- grin was handsome or not" said Ashes of Roses "Or whether Siegmund caressed sieglinde after the fashion of German tenor with the grace of dancing bear, or the heroine wore the most divinely