Cecily in the twilight pressed her face against the window pane. The gaunt branch of a tree waved and pointed across the snow, but the little frozen stream was hidden away.
The child thought that when the boy returned he would still be wonderful.
Randolph Edgar.
THE PERFECT INTERVAL
The sound of the telephone bell brought the tuner’s mild blue eyes from his plate.
“F sharp,” he remarked. “Same pitch as the bell in my shop.”
“How extraordinary that you can name the pitch of a sound offhand!” exclaimed the professor, eyeing him with interest.
“All in the way of business,” replied the tuner placidly. “No, thank you, ma’arm, no cream on the pudding. I never paint the lily, as father used to say. . . . I’d not have been tuning pianos all over the world with a ‘come again’ always behind me if I hadn’t had something of an ear, would I, now?”
“But accurate to such a degree! I thought one tuned by chords and melodies and—and that sort of thing.”
“Chords! Melodies!” repeated the tuner with professional scorn. “Of course some do muddle along that way, but there’s nothing in it. The octave, there’s the interval to give the test to a man’s ear.”