2QO ANGEL PAVEMENT

the middle of them, on the cold floor, was an idiot child
that ran its finger-nail up and down a slate. One last
scratch from the slate, and the horror was over. Once
more, the conductor, after wiping his brow, was acknow-
ledging the applause.

This time, Mr. Smeeth did not hesitate. "And I don't
like that either," he said to his neighbour.

"You don't?" The fierce man was almost staggered.
''You don't like it? You surprise me, sir, you do indeed.
If you don't like that, what in the name of -thunder are
you going to like—in modern music. Come, come,
you've got to give the moderns a chance. You can't
refuse them a hearing altogether, can you?"

Mr. Smeeth admitted that you couldn't, but said it
in such a way as to suggest that he was doing his best
to keep them quiet.

"Very well, then," the fierce man continued, "you've
got to confess that you've just listened to one of the two
or three things written during these last ten years or so
that is going to live. Come now, you must admit that."

"Well, I dare say," said Mr. Smeeth, knitting his
brows.

Here the fierce man began tapping him on the arm.
"Form? Well, of course, the thing hasn't got it, and
it's no good pretending it has, and that's where you and
I"—Mr. Smeeth was given a heavier tap, almost a bang,
to emphasise this—"find ourselves being cheated. But
we're asking for something that isn't there. But the tone
values, the pure orchestral colouring—superb! Damn it,
it's got poetry in it. Romantic, of course. Romantic
as you like-ultra-romantic. All these fellows now are
beginning to tell us they're classical, but they're all
romantic really, the whole boiling of em, and Berlioz