Otto had received his discharge and was to sail next day as deck-hand on a German liner, the Barbarossa. Paul regretted the prospective loss of his burly chum and was envious of Otto's opportunity to return to such a romantic land—though he still disapproved of Otto's reason for returning.
The hall was soon filled, for there were several ships in port and apart from the pubs and the beguilements of Perth—some miles distant—rival attractions were few. The fact that Dismal Jimmy was on the programme while he, Paul Minas, was merely a member of the audience, offended his sense of proportion. Furthermore, his long musical abstention, while it had brought surcease from practice, had ended by inducing an acute desire to make music. As he sat looking up at the piano his shoulders and arms and finger-ends yearned. The antiquated piano on the ship was feeble and unresponsive. Here was a piano which looked as though it might wail and exult. Through his mind coursed grandiose passages from the Schumann "Carnival," and from the querulous, clamorous Chopin étude in C minor which gave off flashes of lightning in the treble while thundering in the base. And no one had even asked if he could "do" anything! The curse of being only thirteen.
A sailor with a rasping baritone sang about "the brave, the brave hussars," and another, with erratic notions of pitch and tempo, sang a ballad which was largely a matter of "Dairy down, dairy ah, dairy dairy oh!" Miss Green doggedly accompanied, whilst necklaces danced about her thin dry neck. There were two daubs of pink on her cheek-bones; her nose was whiter than her elbows; and she wore a yellow muslin dress that made her hair look dusty. But Miss Green was nice. In her presence one felt pleasantly masculine and protective, and jealous of all other males. And Paul had a loyal desire not to be captious about her appearance or her musicianship. Perhaps
