A genius for opportunity drew Giusseppi Pagamini and his new piano organ to this sensational business opening, and the sweet strains of the piano organ drew Rosie Rashnowsky after him. They had drawn her for many blocks, and the meeting of the Cornelias was in full swing when her kimona and hair ribbons came into play upon the sidewalk. She laid the baby upon the steps, swept clean for her reception by Isidore the conscientious, who had little idea--as he plied his broom and scrubbing-brush earlier in the day--that he was strewing the couch of his own small daughter's siesta.
Then to an audience composed of glorified gentlemen in silk hats and top-boots, and the quieter but still sumptuous chauffeur livery, Rosie threw herself into a very ecstasy of her art. Louder thrilled Giusseppi, quicker flew the "fer-ladies-shoes," wilder waved ribbons and dressing jacket. "Out o' sight," commented the footmen. "Bravissimo," ejaculated the chauffeurs, and Rosie reached the climax of her career in a pirouette which brought her, madly whirring, under the aristocratic noses of a pair of chestnut cobs, whose terrified plunges would have ended her gyrations forever and a day if a footman had not interfered. Then Giusseppi passed his battered hat, and the audience, naturally inferring that the black-eyed child belonged to the black-eyed musician, threw him such encouragement as a week of ordinary days would not have brought him.
[Illustration: Rosie threw herself into a very ecstasy of her art.]
In a reckless moment he gave Rosie a nickel, and this wealth, combined with her recent danger and escape, and with the intoxicating quality of her audience, made Rosie follow Giusseppi to the other end of the line of carriages which trailed round the corner and half-way down the next block. Here fresh triumphs awaited her, while from the steps of Fraternity Hall her infant sister called aloud for instant speech with her. The infant was still making these inarticulate demands, when Mrs. Ponsonby-Brown, holding her skirts well above her shoe tops with one hand, while with the other she applied a bottle of lavender salts to her nose, approached the meeting. She was late but unflurried. Her horses, somewhat racked by the elevated trains in Allen Street, had been entirely unnerved by the children, the push-carts, the dogs, and the flying papers, which beset them from all sides and sprang up under their nervous feet. So the philanthropic Mrs. Ponsonby-Brown had alighted from her carriage, secured a small though knowing-looking guide, and walked to her destination. Presently she reached the hall, rewarded her guide, and stopped in her surge up the steps by the yells of the youngest Rashnowsky, which had broken free of its mummy clothes, and was battling for breath with two arms like slate-pencils--as cold, as thin, as gray, and seemingly as brittle.