Lindsay hesitated. “That doesn’t seem exactly a square deal.”
“Oh, it’s all right. You’ll do as well as most of ’em when you get in and have some practice.”
For the next few days Lindsay toiled over “Bluebell,” until the occupant of the room above began thumping on the floor whenever the familiar strains sifted through to his ears. Then came the appointment of an hour for the hearing, and the dreaded visitation of the critics. It was a serious moment for the musician, when, after the little introductory farce which Marchmont had arranged, he took his mandolin and boldly launched forth on the hundredth presentation of “Bluebell.” What mattered it if the last bars did receive a staccato accompaniment by heels on the floor above? The committee were suitably impressed, heard the encore with approval, and adjourned with the assurance that the candidate should have their unanimous commendation—and the commendation of the committee, Marchmont confided to him later in the day, was always equivalent to an election. Lindsay shook his hand in a fervor of gratitude.
That evening Poole walked up from the post office with Laughlin and Durand.
“At last we’ve got another mandolin,” said Poole; “that new Lindsay. You know we’ve been looking for one a long time.”
“Any good?” asked Durand.
“Not remarkable, but decidedly better than nothing. We’ve simply got to have some one to make the balance. Marchmont has promised to help him, too.”
CHAPTER IV
WEIGHED AND MEASURED
From this time on Wolcott began to feel himself a part of the Seaton life. Through the Mandolin Club he added several very agreeable fellows to his list of acquaintances, while his vanity was flattered by the thought that he was no longer the last of four hundred, but one of a selected few. As an immediate result he was thrown much more with Marchmont, with whom he undertook to practise regularly, and soon became intimate.
There was much in the character of Marchmont to impress the new boy. His attitude was always that of a person superior to those about him. He seemed to look up to no one,—instructor, scholar, senior, or athlete. The faculty he regarded as good enough in their way, but narrow-minded. Laughlin he either derided as a country boor, or contemptuously praised as a Roman noble might have praised a successful gladiator. Tompkins was a cowboy, Poole a prig, Planter a very decent sort of a fellow. Lindsay he seemed to count as one of his own class—a distinction of which Wolcott was made to feel the whole complimentary force.