Paul accepted the noise as some novel and not very agreeable form of music. He guessed the man was musical from the fact that he had two pianos. But why, having two real pianos, he should play on that horrid little one, puzzled Paul extremely. It was not nearly so pleasing to the ear as one he himself possessed, which you played by thumping the keys with a hammer made of cork. It was possible to get some sort of tune out of that.
Click-click—click-click-click—— the man could play very fast. He used both hands, and was so absorbed in the tune he was trying to make that he never noticed Paul. He appeared to change his music very often, and it seemed rather a business to get it fixed in the stand, and one thing that interested Paul was that when he chose a new piece he always put in a black sheet of paper behind it. Just inside the door Paul stood gazing absorbedly. Had the man looked up he must have seen him.
"I'll wait till he's finished practising," Paul resolved, "then we'll talk."
The door was at the side, not in the middle of the end wall, and that wall was entirely covered by a huge bookcase—by stretching out his hand he could have taken a book from the shelves, and he was greatly tempted. But he thought it would hardly be polite, as the man was there. Had the room been empty he would have had no such scruples.
He was tired, so he sat down on the floor and leant against the lintel of the open door.
"I wish he'd play a tunier tune," he thought.
Thor lay full length in the little room with the basin, his nose between his paws, his speaking eyes fixed on his master. There was no sound at all except that eternal click-click.
"I kept thinking," Paul said afterwards, "how splendid it would have been to play 'Camptown Races' against Harry. I'd have had the biggest piano and drowned him." Harry could play "Cock o' the North" on the black notes. Paul could thump out "Camptown Races" with one finger! Occasionally, when they got the chance, they would perform against each other, one on the schoolroom the other on the drawing-room piano. Paul was envious of Harry's achievement, but the black notes were beyond him, and "Cock o' the North" skips about so.
If you start "Camptown Races" on F natural it's all plain sailing; the same note is repeated so often that it is not difficult.
Paul stretched out his legs luxuriously and pictured the amazing row he and Harry could produce on those two pianos in what he was pleased to call their "duet."