I plucked a few of them, and they gave forth a pleasing sound. So I plucked some more.
"Yes," I said decidedly, "I like the rigging very much. And now perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what those two foot-clutches are for, which I noticed underneath the keyboard. I suppose they are the brake and the reversing-gear?"
I was wrong. The man expounded their true functions to me. Then I said, "I should just like to examine it underneath, if you wouldn't mind turning it on its back."
The fellow told me that it was unnecessary and unusual—that I had seen all there was to see. This made me suspicious. I was certain he was trying to conceal some radical defect from me. So I made up my mind to see for myself. I took off my coat and crawled underneath. As I suspected, I found two large round holes in the flooring. When I had finished rubbing my head, I drew the man's attention to them. He was able to give a more or less reasonable excuse for them. I forget what he said they were—ventilators, I think.
He concluded by saying that the instrument would be certain to give me the utmost satisfaction.
"You would not recommend my having a more expensive one?" I asked. "A Stradivarius, or a Benvenuto Cellini?"
He thought not; so we clinched the deal.
"I think," I said, as I handed him my cheque, "that I should like my name-plate fixed on it somewhere—say, on one of the end notes that I shall never use."
But he advised me against this. None of the players handicapped at scratch ever thought of such a thing.
"Very well," I said. "Just wrap it up for me, and I'll——"