"Ah! that guitar!" exclaimed Cavender: "Since you first heard Segura, no Spaniard can be more completely fascinated with the instrument. And, to do Segura justice, he has made an excellent guitar player of you, and cultivated your voice with great success."
"But how did you proceed after I left you?" asked Merrill.
"Oh! very well!" replied Cavender; "only that infernal piano, that Harry Fingerley insisted on being brought along with us, was pretty considerable of a bore."
"So I thought," responded Merrill; "to me there appeared something too absurd in conveying through the streets at night so cumbrous an instrument—carrying it on a hand-barrow, like porters."
"Well," observed Cavender, "there were, however, enough of us to relieve each other every square. By-the-bye, I suspect that your true reason for deserting was to avoid taking your turn in carrying the piano."
"You are not far wrong," replied Merrill, smiling.
"It was a ridiculous business," resumed Cavender. "As Fingerley cannot touch an instrument without his notes, and always chooses to show off in difficult pieces, a lantern was brought along, which one of us was obliged to hold for him whenever he played. Unluckily, a music stool had been forgotten, and poor Harry, who, you know, is one of the tallest striplings in town, was obliged to play kneeling: and he wore the knees of his pantaloons threadbare, in getting through a long concerto of Beethoven's, before Miss Flickwire's door."
"To what place did you go after I left you?" inquired Merrill.
"Oh! to serenade that saucy flirt, Miss Lawless, Frank Hazeldon's flame. We ranged ourselves in front of the house, set down the piano and its elegant supporter, the hand-barrow, upon the pavement, and all struck up the Band March, with our eyes turned upwards, expecting that we should see the shutters gently open, and the pretty faces of Lucy Lawless and her two sisters slyly peeping down at us. But we looked in vain. No shutters opened, and no faces peeped."
"Perhaps," said Merrill, "the family were all out of town?"