bours with a similar sense of well-being, some priceless blessing would grow out of it. He recalled Mr. Silva's old sayings, and longed to place these men under a spell they could never forget, to weld them together so that, as one, they should share the benefit of his recent meditations. He had it at heart to evoke in them some counterpart of the awe and humility, melancholy and exaltation, pity and fortitude he had felt upon hearing the symbolic chimes. He was still undecided when the curate announced that the next "item" would be a "piano selection by Master Laval of the Clytemnestra."
The jolt of being thus classified brought before Paul's eyes a vision of the good old Clytemnestra, trudging on, carrying him like the faithful white bear east of the sun and west of the moon. Moon! Those blue velvet nights when his thoughts had walked down its yellow carpet to the very edge of the world, when out of the silence he had conjured up the strains of the composition which Aunt Verona said was miscalled the "Moonlight Sonata." Assuredly it was out of place in this reeking hall—well, he must simply make it in place!
With a new sort of confidence but with none of the swagger of school-concert days, he mounted to the platform. In his mind he was reviewing whole pages to be's ure he remembered the intricate passages.
Instead of compelling his audience to warm his heart with their flattery, he would warm their hearts with the message of Beethoven, a message which he understood to-night infinitely better than in the days when he had glibly performed the sonata with uncalloused hands.
These men, he felt, expected something flashy, ragtime for preference: "Hunky-dory" or "Coon, Coon, Coon, I wish my colour would fade!" They were still humming the refrain of "Old Bull and Bush." A long dormant theatrical instinct seized him in its grip. For the moment he was on his old pedestal, his organ-bench, his sail locker,
