Bud was scoured and brushed, the pocket of his blouse tagged with a five-dollar bill carefully secured by a safety pin, and he started on his way for the address Amarilly had given him. He stopped at the corner drug store to spend his car-fare for an ice-cream soda.
When the lad's quest was repeated to the bishop by his housekeeper, he instructed her to send Bud up to the library, being kindly-disposed towards all boy-kind. While he was questioning his young visitor, the organ of Grace Church, which was next to the bishop's house, pealed forth, and a man's voice began to chant a selection from an oratorio Bud had learned at St. Mark's. A high, childish soprano voice was essaying to carry the sustained note an octave above the man's voice; once it sharped.
"Oh!" shuddered Bud in dismay. "He can't keep the tune."
"He isn't our regular soloist," explained the bishop apologetically. "He is ill, and this boy is trying to learn the part for an organ recital to be given next week."
Again the choirmaster's voice, patient and wearied, began the refrain. Instinctively Bud's little chest swelled, and involuntarily his clear, high treble took the note and sustained it without break through the measures, and then triumphantly broke into the solo. The bishop's eyes shone.
"Come," he said, rising and going towards the door, "come with me."
Wonderingly and obediently, Bud followed him into the church and up to the organ where the choirmaster sat.
"This is one of the boys from St. Mark's. Try him on the solo. He just sang it for me."
"I thought I heard it sung just now, but I feared it was only an echo of my dreams. Let me hear you again, my lad."
Easily and confidently Bud attacked the high C in alt. At the end of the solo, the long-suffering choirmaster looked as if he were an Orpheus, who had found his Eurydice.