Part 24 (2/2)
”Musically. I represent the power of the Press.”
”As critic?”
”Certainly.”
”How long since?”
”To-day. The regular critic is busy with a domestic funeral, his grandmother, or step-mother, or something, and it lay between the devil and me to take his place. Strange to say, the Chief chose me; but he was morose enough to say the old lady shouldn't have died, just when all the other papers in town were sending up their best critics.”
”But how do you expect to get up a criticism?”
Bobby smiled up at him in smug satisfaction over his own wiliness.
”By caressing the mammon of unrighteousness. I know you; likewise the president of this chorus was in my prep. school. I happened to hear of him, last week, and I am banking on the fact for all it is worth.
Therefore I have two strings to my bow. That's more than one of your second violins did. To my certain knowledge, he wrecked two strings in the overture and one in the prelude of your first solo. After that, I got interested and lost count.”
”Do you expect us to dictate our own praises?”
”Not much. I am too canny for that. Besides, don't be too sure they will be praises. No; I have asked the president, in strict confidence, just what he thinks of you, and his answer was properly garrulous. His originality was startling, too. He observed that you have temperament.
Now I am proceeding to ask you, also in strict confidence, what you think of the chorus.”
”That it has intemperament,” Thayer responded promptly. ”Dane, I abhor that word.”
”Is that the reason you coined its negative?”
”No; but it gets on my nerves. When it started out into service, it meant something; but now it is used to express everything, from real artistic feeling down to the way a man rolls up his eyes when he sings love songs. I wish you newspaper men would bring out something new to take its place. You can do it; you generally set the fas.h.i.+on in words.”
”I'll ask Lee, when he gets over his funeral,” Bobby suggested. ”It is out of my line. I am a greater artist than he is, a typographical song without words. I do scareheads, and buffet the devil. Thayer?”
”Yes?”
”Do you honestly enjoy this sort of thing?”
Thayer glanced down at the muddy crossing where they stood waiting for a car to pa.s.s.
”No. I prefer an occasional street-cleaning episode; but what can you expect in a March thaw?”
”I don't mean that,” Bobby said impatiently. ”I'm not joking now.”
”Beg pardon,” Thayer returned briefly. ”What do you mean, Dane?”
”I mean all this tramping round the country, singing to strange people, getting applause at night and reading about yourself, next day. Doesn't it get a frightful bore, after the dozenth time you've been through it?”
”The applause and the audience and the criticisms, yes. The singing, no,” Thayer said, after an interval.
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