"Call it seizure," suggested Tom, curtly. "What do you find there?"
I carried a little armful of books to the table, and placed them within Tom's reach.
"Here's a 'Life of Chopin,' by Niecks," I said. "'Frederic Chopin,' by Franz Liszt. Here's Joseph Bennett and Karasowski and the 'Histoire de ma Vie,' by George Sand. And here are Willeby and Mme. Audley. And I think I have----"
"That'll do for to-night," remarked Tom, seizing the volume nearest to his hand. "What kind of a chap was this Chopin, anyway?"
"He was simply fascinating," I remarked, indiscreetly.
"H'm!" growled Tom, angrily. "Not very respectable, I suppose you mean. George Sand! She was a woman, wasn't she? How did she happen to write his life? What did she know about him?"
I have called Tom a Philistine. Perhaps that was too harsh a term to use, but I'm sure there is a good deal of the Puritan about him.
"She used to see a good deal of him," I answered, rather lamely. "They were great chums for a while."
"H'm," growled Tom, throwing aside George Sand's work and opening another. Presently, he began to read biographical scraps aloud, for all the world like an angry police official drawing up a sweeping indictment against a man of genius.
"'The little Frederick duly received the name of Frederic François, after the son of Count Sharbek, who stood as his godfather,'" began Tom. "'We are told that he very soon showed a great susceptibility to musical sounds, although hardly in the direction which we should have expected, for he howled lustily whenever he heard them.'"