Young Xavier knew no such sorrows. He even served very well at table, with a certain natural as well as acquired skill, for he had once been a “piccolo” or apprentice in a restaurant. Apart from this, however, he was really a perfect ne’er-do-well and a windbag—with certain positive qualities, to be sure, as his modest master and mistress were ready at all times to acknowledge, but none the less an impossible windbag. One was forced to take him as he was and not expect figs from thistles. He was a product and offspring of the disrupted age, a true specimen of his generation, a servant of the revolutionary epoch, a sympathetic Bolshevist. The professor was in the habit of calling him “Master of Ceremonies,” for he proved himself a most useful fellow, obliging and handy, on occasions of special entertainment. But he was totally unacquainted with the notion of duty, and it was as impossible to get him to fulfil the tedious current of daily drudgeries and chores as to teach some dogs to jump over a stick. It was so obviously against his nature that it disarmed one and resigned one to dissatisfaction. He was always ready in the interest of some definite, unusual, and amusing affair to leave his bed at any hour of the night. But he never rose before eight o’clock—he simply would not, would not jump over the stick. But all day long the various expressions of his disrupted existence, the playing of his mouth-organ, his rude but emotional singing, his merry whistling, ascended from the kitchen basement into the upper regions of the house, while the smoke of his cigarettes filled the pantry. He would stand and watch the ladies fallen from high estate, as they worked. In the morning, while the professor was at breakfast, he would tear the leaf off the calendar on the desk, but not do another stroke of work in the room. Doctor Cornelius had ordered him more than once not to tear off the leaves of the calendar, since he was inclined to tear off two leaves at once, and thus ran the risk of creating confusion. But this tearing-off of the leaves had a fascination for young Xavier and he was not going to be done out of it.
Xavier, moreover, was particularly acceptable in that he was a great friend of the children. He would play with the Little Ones in the garden most devotedly, and showed great skill in carving and weaving all kinds of toys for them. At times he would even read to them out of their books, and the accents that fell from his thick lips were wonderful to hear. He was a passionate devotee of the movies, and whenever he had been to a film-play, he would be inclined to melancholy, to vague longings, and to soliloquies. He was moved by an indeterminate hope of one day becoming himself a factor in this magic world, and making his fortune. He based that hope upon his mop of hair and his physical dexterity and recklessness. He would sometimes climb the ash-tree in the front garden, a high but swaying tree, swing himself from branch to branch to the very top, and frighten all who watched him. Having reached the top, he would light a cigarette, swing himself back and forth until the tall trunk shivered to its very roots, and look round for some moving-picture director who might be passing and engage him.
Tonight, if he had taken off his striped jacket and donned civilian clothes, he could easily have joined in the dance without attracting any particular attention. The friends of the Big Ones presented diverse externals; there were several dress-suits in evidence, but these were by no means predominant. Types such as that represented by Möller, the Liedersänger, were among them, female as well as male. The professor, who stood beside the armchair of his wife and contemplated the picture, was casually familiar with the conditions in which this generation was growing up, and much had come to him through hearsay. These girls were schoolgirls and students, arts-and-crafts workers. The male contingent produced strange adventurous types and existences created solely by the times. There was a pale and weedy youth with pearl studs in his shirtfront, the son of a dentist. He was merely a gambler on Change and was able to live, judging by the stories conveyed to the professor, like a second Aladdin with the magic lamp. He kept an automobile, treated his friends to champagne suppers, and was fond of giving them presents on every occasion, precious little souvenirs of gold and mother of pearl. Today, too, he
