He was of medium height, had keen, dark eyes, bushy brows, ruddy cheeks, and a mass of grey hair which he occasionally shook back like a mane. He had the typical hands of the violinist.
“Yes,” answered Lynn, “I want to study with you.”
“Study what?” Herr Kaufmann’s tone was somewhat brusque. “Manners?”
“The violin,” explained Irving, flushing.
“So? You make violins?”
“No—I want to play.”
“Oh,” said the other, looking at him sharply, “it is to play! Well, I can teach you nothing.”
He rose, as though to intimate that the interview was at an end, but Lynn was not so easily turned aside. “Herr Kaufmann,” he began, “I have come hundreds of miles to study with you. We have broken up our home and have come to live in East Lancaster for that one purpose.”
“I am flattered,” observed the Master, dryly. “May I ask how you have heard of me so far away as many hundred miles?”
“Why, everybody knows of you! When I was a little child, I can remember my mother telling me that some day I should study with the great Herr Kaufmann. It is the dream of her life and of mine.”