“You take?” inquired the Violoncello, stimulating his neighbor’s sense of humor by a gentle punch in the ribs with his bow.
“Very good, very good!” answered Charley; and my grandfather, taking the compliment to himself, rather laid himself out on a crescendo and forte that he encountered just then.
Mr. Whacker had practised his part over, hundreds of times, during the week preceding its execution by him on this occasion, and he really played it very creditably. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, at its end, he should have been greeted with a small tempest of clappings and bravos and goots; and it remained his conviction ever after, that of all the quartets of Haydn, the Kaiser most nearly approaches the unapproachable perfection of Mozart.
He looked at the matter from the Second Violin point of view. Who shall cast the first stone?
CHAPTER XXI.
Meanwhile, Mr. Whacker has not been idle. He has been giving his wondering and interested guest an account of what I have just narrated to the reader; omitting, naturally, many things that I have said; saying many things that I have omitted; telling his story, that is, in his own way. Let us drop in upon them and see where they are.
“This was in 1855,—five years ago. How have you managed to supply M. Villemain’s place during all this time? Have you succeeded in developing the local talent?”
“Local talent? Bless you, no. I labored faithfully with my grandson, but had to give him up,—no taste that way. Then there was a young fellow, the son of a neighbor,—young William Jones,—who is now at the University. I had great hopes of him when he began to take lessons; but the scamp was too lazy to practise his exercises, and pretended he couldn’t see any tune in classical music. Perfectly absurd! However,” quickly added Mr. Whacker, observing that his guest was silent, “the majority are of his way of thinking. Bill is a capital fiddler, however, and is invaluable at our dancing parties. He will be down Christmas, and you will hear him.”
“I should like very much to do so,” replied the Don, rather stiffly.
“His ‘Arkansas Traveller’ is an acknowledged m-m-m-masterpiece,” chimed in Charley, “and his ‘B-B-B-Billy in the Low Grounds’ the despair of every other fiddler in the county.”