"And the next day," I broke in, excitedly, "she bought the three girls tin horns and the boys drums!"
Considine ground his teeth.
"If our wicked ways of life demanded that each of us should bear some horrible affliction, but Providence had mitigated the sentence by allowing us to choose our own form of mutilation," he said, slowly, "instead of giving up an arm or a leg or an eye, I would give up both ears and say, 'Lord, make me deaf!' For, much as I love music and the sound of my friends' voices, I believe that I could give up all conversation, and for ever deny myself to Grieg and Beethoven and Wagner rather than stand the daily, hourly torture of the street sounds of a great city."
He looked around at us and real tears stood in his eyes.
"Do you know," said the Angel, answering the look in his friend's eyes, "I believe no one on earth understands the anguish those of us who compose suffer from noise. It is not nervousness which causes us this anguish. It is the creating spirit,—the power of the man who brings words to life in literature or who brings tones to life in music. It is part of the artistic temperament, and if I ever saw a child start and shake and go white at a sudden noise, I should lay my hand on the little chap's head and say to his mother: 'Take care of that child's brain, for in it lies the power of the creator of something great. Teach him above everything self-expression that he may not labour as too many do, yet labour in vain.'"
I loved Considine for the way he looked at my Angel after that speech and the way he moved toward him and took his hand in his big, soft, strong grip.
"I can't stand it!" he declared, standing up. "I'm going. I wouldn't live in New York if they'd give me the town. I'm going back to my five hundred acres and get in the middle of it with a revolver, and I'll shoot anything that approaches!"
But when they had all gone something like dismay seized us.
"He has so much more money than we have," I wailed, "and if he can't do anything where do we come in, I'd like to know!"
The Angel paced up and down thoughtfully with his hands behind his back,—an attitude conducive to deep meditation in men, I have observed.