“I should like very much indeed to hear him,” said the stranger, laughing heartily at Charley’s neatly turned phrase, over which his stammering threw a quaint halo of added humor. “And so you had to give him up also, Mr. Whacker?”
“Yes, I had to give them all up, except Charley here.” And he gave that young man’s knee a vigorous slap, accompanied with an admiring glance. “You could hardly guess how I manage. You see Mr. Waldteufel visits Baltimore twice a year to lay in a stock of music and other articles needed by his pupils, and he has instructions to look about him and pick up, if possible, some violinist newly landed in the country, or one temporarily out of employment; or perhaps he may find an artist desiring a vacation, to whom a few weeks in the country would be a tempting bait. All such he is at liberty to invite to Elmington,—provided, of course,” added Mr. Whacker, with a wave of his hand, “provided they be proper persons.”
“Or the reverse,” soliloquized Charley, prying narrowly, as he spoke, into the bowl of his pipe.
“Or the what?”
“I addressed an observation to my p-p-p-pipe.”
“Well, suppose they are sometimes rather—in fact—rather—what difference, pray, does it make to us two bachelors? You will no doubt think, Mr. Smith, that this is a quartet under difficulties,—and so it is, but it is a quartet after all. If not, in dissenting phrase, a ‘stated,’ it is, at least, an ‘occasional service of song.’”
“Goot for de Barrone!” quoted Charley.
“Then again, I not infrequently invite the leader of some watering-place band to drop in on us, for a week or so, on the closing of the season at the Springs. They are generally excellent musicians, and glad enough, after a summer of waltzes and polkas, to refresh themselves with a little real music. So you see that, after all, where there is a will there is a way. Provide yourself with a cage, and some one will be sure to give you a bird; build a house, and—”
“The r-r-r-rats will soon come.”
“I was going to say a wife—”