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ART VERSUS MUSIC
105
fame had found him out, and that the big, city men who knew things artistic, were undoubtedly in consultation with him. That Ethel had been left all forlorn was the necessary part of a career. Some day — who knows — he would come whirling back into town, and share his greatness with her.
Now as our sight is a bit keener than Dosebury folk's — tho we must confess inferiority in other things — we can state authoritatively that we have seen John Whittler alight from the incoming metropolitan train, and that no committee of first citizens stood ready to welcome him. Instead, John, quite alone, took a street-car to the district where many tall studio buildings proclaimed the hiving quarters of students and the good judgment of landlords in obtaining menagerie rentals for a rabbit-warren of space.
Into one of these tiny rooms, the young artist stowed his easel, his formidable box of colors, and some clean canvases ; and then the problem came up as to whether a maulstick or himself should occupy the remaining space. In the course of time, having compromised this difficulty, John, in regulation velveteen blouse, sat before his easel and listened for the faint voice of inspiration. That fickle goddess must have been in the shopping district; for the hideous wall-paper flowers kept filling his eyes.
For several days John and his belongings haunted the doorway, while the decorators changed his paper to a simpler one, less competitive with his muse. Having reinstalled his outfit like the blocks of a puzzlepicture, the hope of Dosebury softly closed his door, and sat to his belated work, with a businesslike flourish.
From the walls of his partition, thin as a drop-curtain, the sharp arpeggio notes of a piano struck rapidly about him. For a suffering moment, he imagined that he had been thrust head first into this instrument of torture ; then he located the source of the disturbing element. An upright piano
must have its decolletee back against his very walls.
The movement passed to andante with surprising swiftness, and thence jumped to allegro with equal ferocity. John's maulstick trembled like an excited director's baton.
"Pitiful heavens!" he exclaimed, "this may be food for a draughtsman in a boiler factory, or it might encourage a marine artist, with shattered sound-waves; but I am surely going crazy."
He pushed his easel against the wall, and stood listening for new developments, with the solemnity of a
ADJOINING STUDIOS
secretary-bird. A false chord, repeated deliberately, followed by a drilling, furioso movement, caused him to clutch at his collar.
"Ye gods! she's calling out the bucket-brigade, or some such imitation!"
So saying, his feelings got the better of him, and he dashed his slipperheel against the wall with imperative thuddings.
A sudden silence, followed by a faint scream, demonstrated the result of his ironic applause, and he turned toward his door with the smile of one who has delivered a blow in the cause of righteousness. His neighbor's door had opened, too, and a very flushed and indignant young face met his in the hallway. They stared at each Other for a long time, incredulously.