“About a quarter past nine, old dear. What’s the matter with our western friend?”
Monty had lowered his feet to the floor, and was gazing at Jimmy with a strangely earnest expression, an expression absorbed and almost exalted. “Where is this piano?” he asked softly.
“Oh, my poor Leon, he’s going to sing at us!” moaned Jimmy. “Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him!”
But Monty was already crossing the room to the door. “Come on,” he directed. “If we can’t break something let’s make a noise.”
The common room, a big apartment on the first floor comfortably furnished with leather-cushioned chairs and couches and window-seats, was deserted, but in the game room, which opened from it at one end, a dozen boys were seated about the tables at chess or checkers or dominoes. At the other end of the common room was the library, a square apartment of book-lined walls and low reading lamps, and here a few more denizens of Lothrop were ensconced. The evening was a trifle chilly in spite of the warmth of the day, and a small fire flickered in the big fireplace when Monty and Leon and Jimmy descended on the piano. Jimmy was grinning in anticipation of the disturbance about to be created. There was no rule that he knew of prohibiting the use of the piano at that hour, but he fancied the chess players and the studious youths reclining in the padded ease of the library armchairs would not be especially sympathetic toward Monty’s craving for music.
If any such thoughts assailed Monty, he hid the fact. Up went the piano lid, and he ran his fingers along the keys with a startling tri-i-ill. “Some box,” he announced approvingly. Then he seated himself on the bench, struck a chord resonantly, and put his head back. In the library five books were lowered simultaneously, and in the game room a dozen absorbed youths stared amazedly and frowned disapproval.
CHAPTER XII
KEYS: PIANO AND OTHERS
Monty had a good voice, and lots of it, a true baritone. And he proved within a few moments that he could, to use his own phrase, “pound the tombstones.” He could read easy notes, but his playing was usually by ear, and he was not tied down by any particular method, style or rules. Fingering may not have been one of Monty’s strong points, but he had a good sense of harmony and rhythm and plenty of strength! His first offering, however, afforded him small opportunity to prove his skill as an accompanist, for the song required little assistance from the instrument. Nor, for that matter, did it call for remarkable vocal effort. It wasn’t a particularly cheerful song, and the fact that Monty sang it in a drawling wail made it no livelier.
“Oh, bury me out on the lone prairee,