“You are not an artist?”
“No.”
“Yet you wander about with a book in your hand. Are you making plans?”
“Yes, the plan of an overture to King Lear—at least the instrumentation is nearly finished, and I believe its reception will be tremendous.”
“What do you mean by reception? Who is this King Lear?”
“Oh, a wretched old English king.”
“English king?”
“Yes; according to Shakespeare he lived about eighteen hundred years ago, and was idiotic enough to divide his kingdom between two wicked daughters, who kicked him out when he had nothing more to give them. You see, there are few kings that——”
“Never mind kings now. What do you mean by instrumentation?”
“It is a musical term.”