Coffee and Repartee by John Kendrick Bangs (e ink ebook reader .txt) 📖

the best of you in that matter. But, tell me, who was Clink, anyhow?"

"Never heard of him before," returned the Idiot.

"And Burrows?"

"Same as Clink."

"Know anything about _Elsmere_?" chuckled the genial gentleman.

"Nothing--except that it and 'Pigs in Clover' came out at the same time, and I stuck to the Pigs."

And the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed was so pleased at the plight of the School-master and of the Bibliomaniac that he invited the Idiot up to his room, where the private stock was kept for just such occasions, and they put in a very pleasant morning together.


IV

The guests were assembled as usual. The oatmeal course had been eaten in silence. In the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of expectancy--a glitter that boded ill for the man who should challenge him to controversial combat--and there seemed also to be, judging from sundry winks passed over the table and kicks passed under it, an understanding to which he and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed were parties.

As the School-master sampled his coffee the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed broke the silence.

"I missed you at the concert last night, Mr. Idiot," said he.

"Yes," said the Idiot, with a caressing movement of the hand over his upper lip; "I was very sorry, but I couldn't get around last night. I had an engagement with a number of friends at the athletic club. I meant to have dropped you a line in the afternoon telling you about it, but I forgot it until it was too late. Was the concert a success?"

"Very successful indeed. The best one, in fact, we have had this season, which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips. "Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one I've ever seen."

"The finest one you've what?" queried the School-master, startled at the verb.

"The finest one I've ever seen," replied the genial gentleman. "There were only ten performers, and really, in all my experience as an attendant at concerts, I never saw such a magnificent rendering of Beethoven as we had last night. I wish you could have been there. It was a sight for the gods."

"I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a slight cough that may have been intended to conceal a laugh--and that may also have been the result of too many cigarettes--"I don't believe it could have been any more interesting than a game of pool I heard at the club."

"It appears to me," said the Bibliomaniac to the School-master, "that the popping sounds we heard late last night in the Idiot's room may have some connection with the present mode of speech these two gentlemen affect."

"Let's hear them out," returned the School-master, "and then we'll take them into camp, as the Idiot would say."

"I don't know about that," replied the genial gentleman. "I've seen a great many concerts, and I've heard a great many good games of pool, but the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a Cuban pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of _Parsifal_ with surprising agility. As far as I could see, he didn't miss a note, though it was a little annoying to observe how he used the pedals."

"Too forcibly, or how?" queried the Idiot.

"Not forcibly enough," returned the Imbiber. "He tried to work them both with one foot. It was the only thing to mar an otherwise marvellous performance. The idea of a man trying to display Wagner with two hands and one foot is irritating to a musician with a trained eye."

"I wish the Doctor would come down," said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously.

"Yes," put in the School-master; "there seems to be madness in our midst."

"Well, what can you expect of a Cuban, anyhow?" queried the Idiot. "The Cuban, like the Spaniard or the Italian or the African, hasn't the vigor which is necessary for the proper comprehension and rendering of Wagner's music. He is by nature slow and indolent. If it were easier for a Spaniard to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his other leg. I've known Italians whose diet was entirely confined to liquids, because they were too tired to masticate solids. It is the ease with which it can be absorbed that makes macaroni the favorite dish of the Italians, and the fondness of all Latin races for wines is entirely due, I think, to the fact that wine can be swallowed without chewing. This indolence affects also their language. The Italian and the Spaniard speak the language that comes easy--that is soft and dreamy; while the Germans and Russians, stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech that even to us, who are people of an average amount of energy, is sometimes appalling in the severity of the strain it puts upon the tongue. So, while I do not wonder that your Cuban pianist showed woful defects in his use of the pedals, I do wonder that, even with his surprising agility, he had sufficient energy to manipulate the keys to the satisfaction of so competent a witness as yourself."

"It was too bad; but we made up for it later," asserted the other. "There was a young girl there who gave us some of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. Her expression was simply perfect. I wouldn't have missed it for all the world; and now that I think of it, in a few days I can let you see for yourself how splendid it was. We persuaded her to encore the songs in the dark, and we got a flash-light photograph of two of them."

"Oh! then it was not on the piano-forte she gave them?" said the Idiot.

"Oh no; all labial," returned the genial gentleman.

Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look concerned, and whispered something to the School-master, who replied that there were enough others present to cope with the two parties to the conversation in case of a violent outbreak.

"I'd be very glad to see the photographs," replied the Idiot. "Can't I secure copies of them for my collection? You know I have the complete rendering of 'Home, Sweet Home' in kodak views, as sung by Patti. They are simply wonderful, and they prove what has repeatedly been said by critics, that, in the matter of expression, the superior of Patti has never been seen."

"I'll try to get them for you, though I doubt it can be done. The artist is a very shy young girl, and does not care to have her efforts given too great a publicity until she is ready to go into music a little more deeply. She is going to read the 'Moonlight Sonata' to us at our next concert. You'd better come. I'm told her gestures bring out the composer's meaning in a manner never as yet equalled."

"I'll be there; thank you," returned the Idiot. "And the next time those fellows at the club are down for a pool tournament I want you to come up and hear them play. It was extraordinary last night to hear the balls dropping one by one--click, click, click--as regularly as a metronome, into the pockets. One of the finest shots, I am sorry to say, I missed."

"How did it happen?" asked the Bibliomaniac. "Weren't your ears long enough?"

"It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear it," returned the Idiot.

"I think you men are crazy," said the School-master, unable to contain himself any longer.

"So?" observed the Idiot, calmly. "And how do we show our insanity?"

"Seeing concerts and hearing games of pool."

"I take exception to your ruling," returned the Imbiber. "As my friend the Idiot has frequently remarked, you have the peculiarity of a great many men in your profession, who think because they never happened to see or do or hear things as other people do, they may not be seen, done, or heard at all. I _saw_ the concert I attended last night. Our musical club has rooms next to a hospital, and we have to give silent concerts for fear of disturbing the patients; but we are all musicians of sufficient education to understand by a glance of the eye what you would fail to comprehend with fourteen ears and a microphone."

"Very well said," put in the Idiot, with a scornful glance at the School-master. "And I literally heard the pool tournament. I was dining in a room off the billiard-hall, and every shot that was made, with the exception of the one I spoke of, was distinctly audible. You gentlemen, who think you know it all, wouldn't be able to supply a bureau of information at the rate of five minutes a day for an hour on a holiday. Let's go up-stairs," he added, turning to the Imbiber, "where we may discuss our last night's entertainment apart from this atmosphere of rarefied learning. It makes me faint."

And the Imbiber, who was with difficulty keeping his lips in proper form, was glad enough to accept the invitation. "The corks popped to some purpose last night," he said, later on.

"Yes," said the Idiot; "for a conspiracy there's nothing so helpful as popping corks."


V

"When you get through with the fire, Mr. Pedagog," observed the Idiot, one winter's morning, noticing that the ample proportions of the School-master served as a screen to shut off the heat from himself and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed, "I wish you would let us have a little of it. Indeed, if you could conveniently spare so little as one flame for my friend here and myself, we'd be much obliged."

"It won't hurt you to cool off a little, sir," returned the School-master, without moving.

"No, I am not so much afraid of the injury that may be mine as I am concerned for you. If that fire should melt our only refrigerating material, I do not know what our good landlady would do. Is it true, as the Bibliomaniac asserts, that Mrs. Smithers leaves all her milk and butter in your room overnight, relying upon your coolness to keep them fresh?"

"I never made any such assertion," said the Bibliomaniac, warmly.

"I am not used to having my word disputed," returned the Idiot, with a wink at the genial old gentleman.

"But I never said it, and I defy you to prove that I said it," returned the Bibliomaniac, hotly.

"You forget, sir," said the Idiot, coolly, "that you are the one who disputes my assertion. That casts the burden of proof on your shoulders. Of course if you can prove that you never said anything of the sort, I withdraw; but if you cannot adduce proofs, you, having doubted my word, and publicly at that, need not feel hurt if I decline to accept all that you say as gospel."

"You show ridiculous heat," said the School-master.

"Thank you," returned the Idiot, gracefully. "And that brings us back to the original proposition that you would do well to show a little yourself."

"Good-morning, gentlemen," said Mrs. Smithers, entering the room at this moment. "It's a bright, fresh morning."

"Like yourself," said the School-master, gallantly.

"Yes," added the Idiot, with a glance at the clock, which registered 8.45--forty-five minutes after the breakfast hour--"very like Mrs. Smithers--rather advanced."

To this the landlady paid no attention; but the School-master could not refrain from saying,

"Advanced, and therefore not backward, like some persons I might name."

"Very clever," retorted the Idiot,