"Dearly beloved Vox! you have two first-class deficiencies. First, a purposeless life. You happen to be doing good with that wonderful voice of yours; but that is nothing to your credit. You can't help cheering people when you wag your jaws any more than Caleb can help being a comfort to me when he wags his tail. You didn't study music for the sake of helping anybody, but only because music gave you a pleasurable means of getting a livelihood. So you have no soul-satisfaction in your profession, for all you are succeeding so grandly in it. You are like that piece of music which you said was a failure, because, though there were some fine harmonies in it, it had no theme, no prevailing idea, no musical purpose."
"That's me," said Vox, sotto voce, holding his head in his hands. "I know that I am a mere medley, part sacred, part profane, and both parts played by the devil! Go on."
"Stop your pessimism," rejoined the doctor. "That poetic head of yours reminds me that Schiller in the 'Bell' gives utterance to the same idea I am trying to beat into you."
"The Bell? That's me, too; all brass and clapper!" grumbled Vox, twisting Caleb's ears until the brute whined.
The doctor, not heeding either the singer's soliloquy or the brute's, quoted in oratorical style:
"'So let us duly ponder all
The works our feeble strength achieves;
For mean, in truth, the man we call
Who ne'er what he completes conceives.
And well it stamps our human race,
And hence the gift to understand,
That man within the heart should trace
Whate'er he fashions with the hand.'"
Vox groaned. "That's rather heavy poetry for creatures of our caliber, isn't it, Caleb? But I guess that I catch on.—It means the same as the line of the hymn you gave out to-night, doctor;" and Vox sang:
"'Take my voice, and let me sing
Always, only, for my King.'
"That is, if I'm a bell, I should be one on purpose, whether a church-bell, or a door-bell, or only 'God's dog,' to growl"—patting Caleb. "But what is that second thing I lack? Since you've taken the contract to make me over, I want you to be thorough with the job."