There was a momentary queer, smug expression on the visitor’s face as he regarded the furnace register—a sort of appraising look—then he seated himself on the wabbly stool and prepared to give the piano a tryout. In the way that he posed, with his shoulders thrown back and his chin thrust up, I could think of nothing but a conceited rooster getting ready to crow. Spreading out his long, slim fingers, he brought his hands down on the keyboard with an awful thump.
“Tra-LA-LA-LA-LA-A-A!” he boomed, hanging onto the last high “la” until the horrified pictures on the sitting-room wall bulged their glassy eyes and squirmed in agony. “You have here, as [[158]]I said a moment ago, sir, a most magnificent old instrument. Tra-LA-LA-LA-LA-A-A!”
“By gum,” grinned the lock tender, amused at the performance, “you kin make more noise than the cat.”
The Harmony Hustler unloaded a dozen or more tools from his bulging pockets and briskly removed the piano’s wooden top, thus exposing the encased strings. In his work he kept going “Tra-la-lee-tra-la-lum!” but not at the peak of his voice as he had done when he was batting the keyboard. He let on that his whole heart was in his work. But he didn’t fool me. And watching him I wondered why his eyes constantly sought the furnace register. Was he thinking of the cat? It would seem so.
Well, the better part of an hour went by. The worker would tighten a string and then thump its key, seemingly tuning the string to the lilt of his booming voice. Of course he couldn’t make his voice sound the very high and the very low notes. But he covered a wide range of the keyboard, let me tell you.
Finally he straightened from his work.
“There, sir,” he beamed, posing, “the job is done—a Capricorn-Hebrides-Windbigler job, sir, [[159]]than which—I say it in proper modesty—there is none better.” He jiggled his fingers around among the keys. “You will notice the vast improvement in the tone of your instrument, sir—the exquisite harmony. I strike this chord, and the colorful tones conjure up in our minds a picture of a hidden lane in a deep forest. The damp tang of the woodland lies heavy in our nostrils. Now we approach a bank of gorgeous yellow tulips. I strike these minor chords … gently … gently … and we pluck the yellow blossoms, one … by … one.”
The lock tender was laughing up his sleeve at the silly performance.
“By gum, Windbag, they ought to take you an’ make you ’quainted with the inside of a padded cell.”
Gathering up his tools, the Harmony Hustler fumbled with a small wrench, letting the tool fall through the furnace register. Watching him from above, we thought that he had dropped the wrench by accident. We were soon to learn, however, that the act was intentional.