"But why don't you write music?" I said, when we were seated in the railway-train on our way back to Paris. "You are a greater musician than any of those men who are famous and rich."
"My friend," said Franzius, "I am the second violin at La Closerie de Lilas."
It was the first time I had heard him speak at all bitterly, and I said no more. I did not approach the subject again, but that did not prevent me from making plans.
I would rescue this nightingale from its cage in a beer-garden and put it back in the woods; but the thing would require great tact and infinite discretion.
"Have you any music written out—you know what I mean, written out on paper—that I could show to a friend?" I asked him, as we parted at the station.
"I have several 'Lieder,'" replied Franzius. "Very small—just, as you might say, snatches."
"If I send a man for them to-morrow morning, will you give them to him? I will take the greatest care of them."
"But they are so small!"
"Never mind—never mind! I have influence, and may get them published."
He promised. And I saw the light of a new hope in his face as he departed through the gaslit streets on foot—this child of the forest and the dawn, to whom God had given wings, and to whom the world had given a cage!