"How the dickens did you think of pianos for a line?" Dwight asked him once. "Now, my father was a dentist, so I came by it natural—never entered my head to be anything else. But pianos—"
The music man—his name was Neil Cornish—threw up his chin in a boyish fashion, and said he'd be jiggered if he knew. All up and down the Warbleton main street, the chances are that the answer would sound the same. "I'm studying law when I get the chance," said Cornish, as one who makes a bid to be thought of more highly.
"I see," said Dwight, respectfully dwelling on the verb.
Later on Cornish confided more to Dwight: He was to come by a little inheritance some day—not much, but something. Yes, it made a man feel a certain confidence....
"Don't it?" said Dwight heartily, as if he knew.
Every one liked Cornish. He told funny stories, and he never compared Warbleton save to its advantage. So at last Dwight said tentatively at lunch:
"What if I brought that Neil Cornish up for supper, one of these nights?"
"Oh, Dwightie, do," said Ina. "If there's a man in town, let's know it."
"What if I brought him up to-night?"
Up went Ina's eyebrows. To-night?