“The adagio is about to begin!” [Does the learned counsel allude, when he speaks of the “adagio,” to the andante con variazioni of Beethoven’s so-called Kreutzer Sonata,—A major, Opus 47? But did a lawyer ever count for anything outside of his briefs? Ch. Frobisher.[[1]]]
“The adagio be—” thought Charley, with a flash of heat; but reined himself back on that modest little verb; so that no man will ever know what he intended to think. [A thousand pities, too, for as his mind, though originally sound, never had the advantage of legal training, ’tis a recreation that he treats it to but seldom. J. B. W.]
My grandfather has passed out of the parlor on tiptoe, to make this announcement; though why on tiptoe (there being an intermission in the music) I leave to psychologists to determine.
The two giggling girls had popped into seats near the door; and when they saw him moving past them, bent on his errand of mercy (Charley was not to miss the adagio), they fell upon each other’s necks and wept sunny tears.
“Poor Mr. Frobisher!” gasped one.
“Isn’t it too cruel!” gurgled the other.
Presently Mr. Whacker returned, looking rather disconcerted. Charley had said, “In a moment, Uncle Tom;” but his flushed face, and his voice, pitched in a strange key, as it were, rather upset his old friend; and he had retreated rather precipitately, a little troubled in mind (he knew not why), but none the wiser for what he had seen.
“Won’t they come in to hear the adagio?” asked one of the gigglers. The little hypocrite had brought her features under control with an effort, and had even managed to throw into her voice an accent of sympathetic solicitude.
“Not even to hear the adagio!” echoed her pal, with reproachful emphasis.
“They seem to be engaged,” said Uncle Tom, simply.