I sat at the table in the dining room. Jarvis Alexander Mackworth sat on the piano-stool, again playing the piano in rhythm rather than in accompaniment with the records ... it was Caruso now....
"A glorious voice, isn't it, young man?" Mackworth asked, as I ate voraciously of the cold roast set before me ... of the delicious white bread and fresh dairy butter, just from the churn of some neighbouring farmer.
"I know nothing much about music," he continued, "—just appreciate it ...—seems to me that's what we need now, more than anything else ... appreciation of the arts.... I like to sit here and pick out the melodies on the piano as the tune runs on. It inspires me. The precious people, the aesthetic upstarts, make fun of Edison and his 'canned music,' as they call it ... but I say Edison is one of the great forces for culture in America to-day. Everybody can't go to New York, London, Paris, Bayreuth ... not to Chicago even....
"Beauty must come to Osageville, since Osageville cannot come to Beauty."
I was charmed.
"Mr. Mackworth, you are a great man," I said.
A ring at the bell. Ally Merton....
"Ally, this is Mr. John Gregory, poet at large, Villon of American Literature ... let us hope, some day a little more of the Whittier ... Ally—" and the speaker turned to me, "Ally Merton is my right hand man ... my best reporter...."
He took Merton aside, in private talk.... Ally looked me over with a keen, swift glance that appraised me from head to foot instantly ... sharply but not hostilely ... as one who takes in a situation in a comprehensive instant.