Will went to his boarding house and climbed the stairs wearily. The devil—one might face anything if one but knew what was to be faced!
He turned on a light and sat down in his room on the edge of the bed, and the old cornet player pounced upon him, pounced like a little animal, lying under a bush along a path in a forest, and waiting for food. He came into Will’s room carrying his cornet, and there was an almost bold look in his eyes. Standing firmly on his old legs in the centre of the room, he made a declaration. “I’m going to play it. I don’t care what she says, I’m going to play it,” he said.
He put the cornet to his lips and blew two or three notes—so softly that even Will, sitting so closely, could barely hear. Then his eyes wavered. “My lip’s no good,” he said. He thrust the cornet at Will. “You blow it,” he said.
Will sat on the edge of the bed and smiled. There was a notion floating in his mind now. Was there something, a thought in which one could find comfort. There was now, before him, standing before him in the room, a man who was after all not a man. He was a child as Will was too really, had always been such a child, would always be such a child. One need not be too afraid. Children were all about, everywhere. If one were a child and lost in a vast, empty space, one could at least talk to some other child. One could have conversations, understand perhaps something of the eternal childishness of oneself and others.
Will’s thoughts were not very definite. He only felt suddenly warm and comfortable in the little room at the top of the boarding house.
And now the man was again explaining himself. He wanted to assert his manhood. “I stay up here,” he explained, “and don’t go down there, to sleep in the room with my wife because I don’t want to. That’s the only reason. I could if I wanted to. She has the bronchitis—but don’t tell anyone. Women hate to have anyone told. She isn’t so bad. I can do what I please.”
He kept urging Will to put the cornet to his lips and blow. There was in him an intense eagerness. “You can’t really make any music—you don’t know how—but that don’t make any difference,” he said. “The thing to do is to make a noise, make a deuce of a racket, blow like the devil.”
Again Will felt like crying but the sense of vastness and loneliness, that had been in him since he got aboard the train that night at Bidwell, had gone. “Well, I can’t go on forever being a baby. Kate has a right to get married,” he thought, putting the cornet to his lips. He blew two or three notes, softly.
“No, I tell you, no! That isn’t the way! Blow on it! Don’t be afraid! I tell you I want you to do it. Make a deuce of a racket! I tell you what, I own this house. We don’t need to be afraid. We can do what we please. Go ahead! Make a deuce of a racket!” the old man kept pleading.