“Well, if I needed an accomplice,” said Average Jones thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t want any better one than a half-witted man. Did he play well?”
“Atrociously. And if you know what a soul-shattering blare exudes from a B-flat trombone—” Mr. Waldemar lifted expressive hands.
Within Average Jones’ overstocked mind something stirred at the repetition of the words “B-flat trombone.” Somewhere they had attracted his notice in print; and somehow they were connected with Waldemar. Then from amidst the hundreds of advertisements with which, in the past weeks, he had crowded his brain, one stood out clear. It voiced the desire of an unknown gentleman on the near border of Harlem for the services of a performer upon that semi-exotic instrument. One among several, it had been cut from the columns of the Universal, on the evening which had launched him upon his new enterprise. Average Jones made two steps to a bookcase, took down a huge scrap-book from an alphabetized row, and turned the leaves rapidly.
“Three Hundred East One Hundredth Street,” said he, slamming the book shut again. “Three Hundred East One Hundredth. You won’t mind, will you,” he said to Waldemar, “if I leave you unceremoniously?”
“Recalled a forgotten engagement?” asked the other, rising.
“Yes. No. I mean I’m going to Harlem to hear some music. Thirty-fourth’s the nearest station, isn’t it? Thanks. So long.”
Waldemar rubbed his head thoughtfully as the door slammed behind the speeding Ad-Visor.
“Now, what kind of a tune is he on the track of, I wonder?” he mused. “I wish it hadn’t struck him until I’d had time to go over the Linder business with him.”
But while Waldemar rubbed his head in cogitatation and the Honorable William Linder, in his Brooklyn headquarters, breathed charily, out of respect to his creaking rib, Average Jones was following fate northward.
Three Hundred East One Hundredth Street is a house decrepit with a disease of the aged. Its windowed eyes are rheumy. It sags backward on gnarled joints. All its poor old bones creak when the winds shake it. To Average Jones’ inquiring gaze on this summer day it opposed the secrecy of a senile indifference. He hesitated to pull at its bell-knob, lest by that act he should exert a disruptive force which might bring all the frail structure rattling down in ruin. When, at length, he forced himself to the summons, the merest ghost of a tinkle complained petulantly from within against his violence.