“Baireuth? Who’s Baireuth?” asked Francis.
“Oh, a man I know. His other name was Wagner, and he wrote some tunes.”
Francis nodded.
“Oh, but I’ve heard of him,” he said. “They’re rather long tunes, aren’t they? At least I found them so when I went to the opera the other night. Go on with your plans, Mike. What do you mean to do after that?”
“Go on to Munich and hear the same tunes over, again. After that I shall come back and settle down in town and study.”
“Play the piano?” asked Francis, amiably trying to enter into his cousin’s schemes.
Michael laughed.
“No doubt that will come into it,” he said. “But it’s rather as if you told somebody you were a soldier, and he said: ‘Oh, is that quick march?’”
“So it is. Soldiering largely consists of quick march, especially when it’s more than usually hot.”
“Well, I shall learn to play the piano,” said Michael.