“But why are you playing here?” Jeanne demanded.
“I came—” there was a low chuckle. “I came here so I could play for the pigeons who roost under the tank there. They like it, I’m sure. Did you hear them cooing?”
“Yes. But why—” Jeanne hesitated, bewildered. “Why for the pigeons? You play divinely!”
“Thanks.” He made a low bow. “I play well enough, I suppose. So do a thousand others. That’s the trouble. There is not room for us all, so I must take to the house-tops.”
“But how do you live?” Jeanne did not mean to go on, yet she could not stop.
“I play twice a week in a—a place where people eat, and—and drink.”
“Is it a nice place?”
“Not too nice, but it is a nice five dollars a week they pay me. One may eat and have his collars done for five a week. The janitor of this building lets me have a cubbyhole under the roof, and so—” he laughed again. “I am handy to the pigeons. They appreciate my music, I am sure of it.”
“Don’t!” Jeanne sprang up and stamped a foot. “Don’t joke about art. It—it’s not nice!”
“Oh!” the boy breathed, “I’m sorry.”