"I'm not in the least troubled in regard to the luggage, Jasper," replied his father, testily; "it's something much more important than the luggage question about which I wish to speak to you."
Jasper stared, well knowing his father's views in regard to the luggage question. "The first thing that you must unpack—the very first," old Mr. King was saying, "is your music. Don't wait a minute, Jasper, but go and get it. And then call Polly, and—"
"Why, father," exclaimed Jasper, "there isn't a single place to play in. You don't know how people stare if we touch the piano. We can't here, father; there's such a crowd in this hotel."
"You do just as I say, Jasper," commanded his father. "And tell Polly to get her music; and then do you two go to the little room out of the big parlour, and play to your hearts' content." And he burst into a hearty laugh at Jasper's face, as he dangled a key at the end of a string, before him.
"Now I do believe, father, that you've got Polly a piano and a little room to play in," cried Jasper, joyfully, and pouncing on the key.
"You go along and do as I tell you," said Mr. King, mightily pleased at the success of his little plan. "And don't you tell Polly Pepper one word until she has taken her music down in the little room," as Jasper bounded off on the wings of the wind.
And in that very hotel was the big fat man with the dreadful black beard, resting after a long season of hard work.
But Polly and Jasper wouldn't have cared had they known it, as long as they had their own delightful little music room to themselves—as they played over and over all the dear old pieces, and Polly revelled in everything that she was so afraid she had forgotten.
"I really haven't lost it, Jasper!" she would exclaim radiantly, after finishing a concerto, and dropping her hands idly on the keys. "And I was so afraid I'd forgotten it entirely. Just think, I haven't played that for three months, Jasper King."
"Well, you haven't forgotten a bit of it," declared Jasper, just as glad as she was. "You didn't make any mistakes, hardly, Polly."