“So Bayne declared,” said Barry.
“Well, you have had quite an exciting afternoon. But finish your tea and get ready for the meeting. I will wash up.”
“Not if I know it, dad. You take your saw-horse and do me a little Handel or Schubert. Do, please,” entreated his son. “I want that before meeting more than anything else. I want a change of mood. I confess I am slightly rattled. My address is all prepared, but I must have atmosphere before I go into the meeting.”
His father took the 'cello, and after a few moments spent in carefully tuning up, began with Handel's immortal Largo, then he wandered into the Adagio Movement in Haydn's third Sonata, from thence to Schubert's Impromptu in C Minor, after which he began the Serenade, when he was checked by his son.
“No, not that, dad, that's sickening. I consider that the most morally relaxing bit of music that I know. It frays the whole moral fibre. Give us one of Chopin's Ballades, or better still a bit of that posthumous Fantasie Impromptu, the largo movement. Ah! fine! fine!”
He flung his dish-cloth aside, ran to the piano and began an accompaniment to his father's playing.
“Now, dad, the Largo once more before we close.” They did the Largo once and again, then springing from the piano Barry cried: “That Largo is a means of grace to me. There could be no better preparation for a religious meeting than that. If you would only come in and play for them, it would do them much more good than all my preaching.”
“If you would only take your music seriously, Barry,” replied his father, somewhat sadly, “you would become a good player, perhaps even a great player.”
“And then what, dad?”
His father waved him aside, putting up his 'cello.