The Earl of Barfield was one of those people to whom music is neither more nor less than noise. He loved quiet and hated noise, and the four interpreters of the melody and harmony of Beethoven afforded him as much delight as so many crying children would have done. It had been a joke against him in his youth that he had once failed to distinguish between “God save the King” and the “Old Hundredth.” Harmony and melody here were alike divine in themselves, and were more than respectably rendered, and he sat and suffered under them in his young friend's behoof like a hero. They bored him unspeakably, and the performance lasted half an hour. When it was all over he beat his withered white hands together once or twice, and smiled in self-gratulation that his time of suffering was over.
“Admirably rendered!” cried Ferdinand; “admirably—admirably rendered. Will you forgive me just a hint, sir?” He addressed Sennacherib. “A leetle more light and shade! A performance less level in tone.”
“P'raps the young man'll show us how to do it,” said Sennacherib, in a dry, mock humility, handing his fiddle and bow towards the critic.
The critic accepted them with a manner charmingly unconscious of the intended satire, and walked round the table until he came behind Reuben, when he turned back the music for a leaf or two.
“Here, for example,” he said, and tucking the instrument beneath his chin, played through a score of bars with a certain exaggerated chic which awakened Sennacherib's derision.
“What dost want to writhe i' that fashion for?” he demanded. “Dost find thine inwards twisted? It's a pretty tone, though,” he allowed. “The young man can fiddle. Strikes me, young master, as thee'dst do better at the Hopera than the House o' Commons. Tek a fool's advice and try.”
Ferdinand smiled with genuine good-humor. This insolent old personage began to amuse him.
“Really I don't know, sir,” he answered. “Perhaps I may do pretty well in the House of Commons, if you will be good enough to try me. One can't please everybody, but I promise to do my best.”
“The best can do no more,” said Fuller, in a mellow, peace-making kind of murmur; “the best can do no more.”
“I've no mind for that theer whisperin' and shout-in' in the course of a piece of music,” said Sennacherib. “Pianner is pianner, and forte is forte, but theer's no call to strain a man's ears to listen to the one, nor to drive him deaf with t'other. Same time, if the young gentleman 'ud like to come an' gi'e us a lesson now and then we'd tek it.”