The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes

'I don't particularly. It isn't mine.'

'Whose is it?'

Lancelot answered briskly: 'Mary Ann's. She asked to be allowed to keep it here. It seems it won't sing in her attic; it pines away.'

'And do you believe that?'

'Why not? It doesn't sing much even here.'

'Let me look at it-ah, it's a plain Norwich yellow. If you wanted a singing canary you should have come to me; I'd have given you one 'made in Germany'-one of our patents-they train them to sing tunes and that puts up the price.'

'Thank you, but this one disturbs me sufficiently.'

'Then why do you put up with it?'

'Why do I put up with that Christmas number supplement over the mantel-piece? It's part of the furniture. I was asked to let it be here and I couldn't be rude.'

'No, it's not in your nature. What a bore it must be to feed it! Let me see, I suppose you give it canary seed biscuits-I hope you don't give it butter.'

'Don't be an ass!' roared Lancelot. 'You don't imagine I bother my head whether it eats butter or-or marmalade.'

'Who feeds it then?'

'Mary Ann, of course.'

'She comes in and feeds it?'

'Certainly.'

'Several times a day?'

'I suppose so.'

'Lancelot,' said Peter, solemnly. 'Mary Ann's mashed on you.'

Lancelot shrank before Peter's remark as a burglar from a policeman's bull's-eye. The bull's-eye seemed to cast a new light on Mary Ann, too, but he felt too unpleasantly dazzled to consider that for the moment; his whole thought was to get out of the line of light.

'Nonsense!' he answered; 'why, I'm hardly ever in when she feeds it, and I believe it eats all day long-gets supplied in the morning like a coal-scuttle. Besides, she comes in to dust and all that when she pleases. And I do wish you wouldn't use that word 'mashed.' I loathe it.'

Indeed, he writhed under the thought of being coupled with Mary Ann. The thing sounded so ugly-so squalid. In the actual, it was not so unpleasant, but looked at from the outside-unsympathetically-it was hopelessly vulgar, incurably plebeian. He shuddered.

'I don't know,' said Peter. 'It's a very expressive word, is 'mashed.' But I will make allowance for your poetical feelings and give up the word-except in its literal sense, of course. I'm sure you wouldn't object to mashing a music publisher!'

Lancelot laughed with false heartiness. 'Oh, but if I'm to write those popular ballads, you say he'll become my best friend.'

'Of course he will,' cried Peter, eagerly sniffing at the red herring Lancelot had thrown across the track. 'You stand out for a royalty on every copy, so that if you strike ile-oh, I beg your pardon, that's another of the phrases you object to, isn't it?'

'Don't be a fool,' said Lancelot, laughing on. 'You know I only object to that in connection with English peers marrying the daughters of men who have done it.'

'Oh, is that it? I wish you'd publish an expurgated dictionary with most of the words left out, and exact definitions of the conditions under which one may use the remainder. But I've got on a siding. What was I talking about?'

'Royalty,' muttered Lancelot, languidly.

'Royalty? No. You mentioned the aristocracy, I think.' Then he burst into a hearty laugh. 'Oh, yes-on that ballad. Now, look here! I've brought a ballad with me, just to show you-a thing that is going like wildfire.'

'Not Good-night and Good-by, I hope,' laughed Lancelot.

'Yes-the very one!' cried Peter, astonished.

'Himmel!' groaned Lancelot, in comic despair.

'You know it already?' inquired Peter, eagerly.

'No; only I can't open a paper without seeing the advertisement and the sickly sentimental refrain.'

'You see how famous it is, anyway,' said Peter. 'And if you want to strike-er-to make a hit you'll just take that song and do a deliberate imitation of it.'

'Wha-a-a-t!' gasped Lancelot.

'My dear chap, they all do it. When the public cotton to a thing, they can't have enough of it.'

'But I can write my own rot, surely.'

'In the face of all this litter of 'Ops.' I daren't dispute that for a moment. But it isn't enough to write rot-the public want a particular kind of rot. Now just play that over-oblige me.' He laid both hands on Lancelot's shoulders in amicable appeal.

Lancelot shrugged them, but seated himself at the piano, played the introductory chords, and commenced singing the words in his pleasant baritone.

Suddenly Beethoven ran towards the door, howling.

Lancelot ceased playing and looked approvingly at the animal.

'By Jove! he wants to go out. What an ear for music that animal's got.'

Peter smiled grimly. 'It's long enough. I suppose that's why you call him Beethoven.'

'Not at all. Beethoven had no ear-at least not in his latest period-he was deaf. Lucky devil! That is, if this sort of thing was brought round on barrel-organs.'

'Never mind, old man! Finish the thing.'

'But consider Beethoven's feelings!'

'Hang Beethoven!'

'Poor Beethoven. Come here, my poor maligned musical critic! Would they give you a bad name and hang you? Now you must be very quiet. Put your paws into those lovely long ears of yours, if it gets too horrible. You have been used to high-class music, I know, but this is the sort of thing that England expects every man to do, so the sooner you get used to it, the better.' He ran his fingers along the keys. 'There, Peter, he's growling already. I'm sure he'll start again, the moment I strike the theme.'

'Let him! We'll take it as a spaniel obligato.'

'Oh, but his accompaniments are too staccato. He has no sense of time.'

'Why don't you teach him, then, to wag his tail like the pendulum of a metronome? He'd be more use to you that way than setting up to be a musician, which Nature never meant him for-his hair's not long enough. But go ahead, old man, Beethoven's behaving himself now.'

Indeed, as if he were satisfied with his protest, the little beast remained quiet, while his lord and master went through the piece. He did not even interrupt at the refrain:-

'Kiss me, good-night, dear love,

Dream of the old delight;

My spirit is summoned above,

Kiss me, dear love, good-night.'

'I must say it's not so awful as I expected,' said Lancelot, candidly; 'it's not at all bad-for a waltz.'

'There, you see!' cried Peter, eagerly; 'the public are not such fools after all.'

'Still, the words are the most maudlin twaddle!' said Lancelot, as if he found some consolation in the fact.

'Yes, but I didn't write them!' replied Peter, quickly. Then he grew red and laughed an embarrassed laugh. 'I didn't mean to tell you, old man. But there-the cat's out. That's what took me to Brahmson's that afternoon we met! And I harmonised it myself, mind you, every crotchet. I picked up enough at the Conservatoire for that. You know lots of fellows only do the tune-they give out all the other work.'

'So you are the great Keeley Lesterre, eh?' said Lancelot, in amused astonishment.

'Yes; I have to do it under another name. I don't want to grieve the old man. You see, I promised him to reform, when he took me back to his heart and business.'