"Perhaps you could play it better?" I suggested sweetly. His jaw dropped with consternation.
"Play it better! Oh, Lord! She says can I play it better! Can-I-play-it-better? Well, I'll tell you one thing. If I couldn't play it better, d'ye know what I'd do? Do you?"
"No," said I, and tied my shoe. He didn't talk thickly as they do in books. On the contrary, he brought out each word with a particularly clear and final utterance.
"Well, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd go off and drown my sorrers in drink! Yes, I would. Although I'm so drunk that I wouldn't know when I was getting drunk on principle and when I was just plain drunk. Le' me tell you somethin': I'm drunk now!" He announced the fact with a gravity so colossal as to render laughter impossible. I untied the other shoe.
"Can you really play Chopin?" I said. He shook his fist at the Avery cottage.
"What I can't play of Chopin you never heard played! So that's the end o' that," he said. The folly of the situation suddenly became clear to me. I hastily tied my shoe and turned to go. He half rose from the sand, but sank helplessly back.
"Look here," he said confidentially, "I'm tired, and I need m' rest. I got to have rest. We all need rest. If you want to hear me play, you come to the old hulk of a barn that's got the piano in it. They call it the auditorium—au-di-to-ri-um." He pronounced the syllables as if to a child of three. "I'll be there. You come before supper. I'll be rested then. I'd like to shoot that woman—thinks she can play—damn nonsense—" I went on to the beach.
II
My brother-in-law came down on the afternoon boat, and of course he occupied our attention. His theories, though often absurd, are certainly well sustained. For instance, his ideas as to the connection between genius and insanity. He says—but I don't know why I speak of it. I defeated him utterly. At length I left the room. I hate a man who won't give up when he's beaten. I found the Nice Boy on the piazza, and we sat and talked. Really a charming fellow. And not so very young, either. He told fascinating tales of a shipwreck he'd experienced, where they sat on the bow as the boat went down and traded sandwiches.