"Oh, begone!" said he. "See you do not trouble me again, lest I prove better citizen next time and rid the country of you once and for all." Scarcely had the words left his lips than the cowed ruffians made off so hastily that they might have vanished into thin air.
"And now, sir," said my companion, carefully uncocking the pistol ere he pocketed it, "let us continue our so agreeable conversation. A crowd of humans, sir, to my mind is a mystery deep as ocean, sublime as the starry firmament, for who shall divine the thoughts, hopes, passions and desires animating its many various and component entities? Moreover, though composed of many different souls, it may yet possess but one in common, to be swayed to mirth and anger, lifted to a reverent ecstasy or fired to bloody vengeance and merciless destruction. What is there can give any just conception of a mystery so complex?"
"Surely nothing, sir," said I.
"Nay, young sir, therein I venture to think you are wrong, for we possess a divine joy, a soul medium, a very gift of God and we call it,—music, sir. To such as have ears, music is the speech of Gods, of the Infinite, soaring far above mere words, revealing the unconceived, speaking forth the unthinkable."
"And what, sir, is the unthinkable?" I questioned.
"That which flashes upon a man's consciousness without the labour of thought, an intimate cognizance of—What the devil is it now, Atkinson?" he broke off so suddenly that I started and, glancing up, beheld an extremely neat, grave, sedate personage who removed his hat to bow, and advancing deferentially, stooped sleek head to murmur discreetly in my aged companion's ear.
"Tell 'em I'm engaged; bid 'em be hanged—no, say I'll come!" The grave personage bowed again and moved sedately off.
"Young sir," sighed my companion, rising, "I have found you particularly interesting, your arguments well-founded, your views on music particularly arresting. It grieves me, therefore, to depart, but duty calls. Pray oblige me with your arm, for I am a little lame. A bullet, sir!" he volunteered as he limped beside me. "A shattered knee-cap to remind me of my vivid youth, an awkward limp to keep in my mind the lovely cause—aha, she was all clinging tenderness and plump as a partridge then. I was her Eugenio and she my Sacharissa—a withered crone to-day, sir, and, alas, most inelegantly slim, I hear—bones, a temper, an eagle's beak and nut-cracker chin! Aye, me—what changes time doth ring—eheu! fugaces!"
"And what of—him, sir, your opponent?" I ventured to ask.
"Was necessitated to buy himself a new hat, seeing I'd peppered the one he wore, young sir."