A kind of panic seized me, for on Friday evenings I make the Academy of Music as it were a half-way house on my way home. Under the cleaner's kind and beaming glance there was nothing to do but put them into the attaché case in which I carry my music and try to believe that, wonderful man as he is, even my Professor wouldn't be able to see inside it when it was shut, in fact that it only rested with me to be quite sure that in his presence I only took out Chopin and not the gentleman who was interested in farming.
And I managed nicely. I took out the "Nocturnes" and shut the case up again before the cleverest (and nicest) of Professors could have guessed the company they were keeping, and he was graciously pleased to nod, instead of shaking his head, for most of the three-quarters of an hour. He really must have been pleased with me, for at 7.45 he told me that I showed marked improvement, and then kept me till 7.49 while he explained that a flair for the best of music such as I exhibited was both uncommon and, from a Professor's point of view, exceeding enjoyable. At 7.50—he, benign, I blushful—we approached the attaché-case.
"Allow me," said my Professor, reaching for it to replace Chopin; but I snatched it up before he could get it. Like most truly great men he is a little absent-minded, and he didn't seem to notice anything, but just held out his hand in farewell. But when my Professor shakes hands it means more than that; it means benediction, recognition, salutation—lots of things; for it is rumoured at the Academy that he never bestows that honour on any save those whom he regards as kindred spirits, acolytes at the altar of Music, personalities, not pupils.
And then my attaché-case opened itself quietly, after the manner of attaché-cases, and laid "'Ow're you goin' to keep 'em?" and "The Maxeema" right side up, and their names in such large print too, like an offering at his wonderful feet. Trembling at the knees I said:—
"My cleaner gave them to me."
But he looked at me and went on looking, and that is why I hope so very much that he will read this very unlikely story.
MORE PAY FOR M.P.'S.
(A perfectly horrible prospect.)