To put his plan in action he seized a chair at the first rehearsal, and lightly threw his leg over the back of it.

“Can you fellows do that?” he asked Roger and Solly, who were talking to Griselda.

“I’d probably rupture myself if I tried,” said Solly.

Roger quickly did what Hector had done, first with his right leg and then with his left.

“Let’s see you do it with both legs,” he said.

Hector tried it, and although his right leg, with which he had been practising, answered satisfactorily to the call of romance, the left leg knocked over the chair, and he stumbled.

“See what I mean?” said Solly, officiously seizing him by the arm, to prevent a fall. “You might easily unman yourself doing a trick like that.”

What a coarse thing to say in front of a young girl, thought Hector. He would have liked to punch young Bridgetower in his loose mouth. He was humiliated. But no one appeared to notice his humiliation. The Torso had joined them, seeing that kicking was toward, and was demonstrating how she could hold her right foot above her head with her right hand, and spin on her left leg. This showed a good deal of her drawers, which were pink and short and had lace on them. Nobody had eyes for the red-faced Hector.

As for cutting out pie, he had read in the Reader’s Digest that slimming exercises and abstinences should not be embarked upon hastily. And so for a couple of weeks he cut out his usual piece of pie with his lunch on Tuesdays and Fridays, but did not tamper with his dinner menu.

During those two weeks he found no opportunity to address Griselda directly, but he watched her closely, and the feeling for her which he had decided to call love, a feeling in which worship and the yearning to champion and serve her were untainted by any fleshly aspiration, deepened and took hold of him as no feeling had done since he had made up his mind to get a university degree.

Solly’s expedition in search of Humphrey Cobbler took him to a part of Salterton which was new to him. He walked slowly down one of those roads which are to be found in the new sections of all Canadian cities; rows of small houses lined both sides of the street, and although these little houses were alike in every important respect a miserable attempt had been made to differentiate them by a trifle of leaded glass here, a veneer of imitation stonework there, a curiously fashioned front door in another place, by all the cheap and tasteless shifts of the speculative builder. A glance at one was enough to lay bare the plan of all. Even that last modesty of a dwelling—the location of the water closet—was rudely derided by the short ventilation pipes which broke through each roof at identically the same spot. These were not houses, thought Solly, in which anyone could be greatly happy, or see a vision; no ghost would dream of haunting one of them; the pale babies being aired in their perambulators on the small verandahs did not look to him as though they had been begotten in passion; the dogs which ran from one twig-like tree (fresh from the nursery) to another, did not seem to be of any determinable breed; he could not imagine anyone at all like Griselda living in one of these dreadful boxes.

He was surprised, therefore, as he drew near the house which bore Humphrey Cobbler’s number, to hear a burst of cheerful singing, accompanied with great liveliness on the piano. When he rapped at the door it was quickly answered by a red-cheeked, rather stout young woman with very black hair; her feet were bare, and her crumpled cotton frock somehow gave the impression that she wore very little beneath it. She bade Solly come in, and he found himself in a barely furnished and rather dirty room, where a shock-headed man was seated at a grand piano, and four barefoot, tousled children were singing at the tops of their pleasant voices.

“Hello!” roared the pianist. “Sit down; we’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Sweet nymph, come to thy lover,” sang the children.

“Words! Words!” shouted the man. “Spit it out!”

Obligingly, the children spat it out, with such clarity that when they had finished their song the man cried “Good!” and chased them away.

“We have a little workout twice a day,” he said to Solly. “Lay the foundation of a good voice before puberty; thaf s the whole secret. Train them gently over the break, and then they’ve a voice that will last them fifty or sixty years.”

“Have you many child pupils?” Solly inquired.

“Oh, those aren’t pupils; they’re my own. People won’t pay to have children taught to sing. What can I do for you?”

“You are Humphrey Cobbler, I suppose?”

“Yes. You’re Solomon Bridgetower. I’ve seen you about.”

As he explained what he wanted, Solly was able to take a good look at his host. Humphrey Cobbler was the kind of Englishman who has a high complexion and black, curly hair; his nose was aquiline, his build slight. He might have been taken for a Jew, if it had not been for his bright, restless eye, like a robin’s, which leaped constantly from Solly’s face to his feet, from his feet to his hands, from his hands to his ears, and from his ears to something curious and amusing which apparently was hovering above his head. Cobbler, like his wife, was not overdressed; his trousers were held up by an old tie knotted around his waist, his shirt lacked most of its buttons, and his bare feet were thrust into trodden-down slippers. His hair, to which Nellie had referred, was saved from complete disorder by its curls, but there was a great deal of it, and from time to time he gave a portion of it a powerful tug, as though to brighten his wits, much as some people take pinches of snuff.

When Solly had made his suggestion Cobbler seized upon it with enthusiasm. “Of course I’ll do it,” said he; “we can make a very complete thing of it. There’s plenty of lovely music for The Tempest, but we’ll use all Purcell, I think. I don’t suppose you’d like to revise your plans and do Shadwell’s version of the play, would you? A much tidier bit of playwrighting, really. No? I feared not. Wonderful music there.” Darting to the piano he burst into song:

“Doesn’t that stir you? Marvellous stuff! However, if you insist on sticking to the old Shakespeare thing we can do something very tasty. Your people can sing, I suppose?”

“They say so,” said Solly. “I’m not sure about all of them. Perhaps you have met Miss Griselda Webster? She is to play Ariel, and she sings charmingly.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Cobbler.

“I’m afraid we can’t offer you any fee,” said Solly, with some hesitation.

“I didn’t expect you could,” said Cobbler. “Odd how so few really interesting jobs have any fee attached. Ah, well. You don’t mind if I work Molly and the kids in for a bit of backstage singing, do you? They’d love it.”

Solly had not liked bringing up the matter of the fee, and in his relief he replied as though the presence of Molly and the little Cobblers backstage were all that was needed to make life perfect. He then brought up the matter of Mr Snairey. Cobbler opened his mouth very wide, so that Solly was able to see the pillars of his throat, and laughed in a wild and hollow manner.

“I know it’s a nuisance,” said Solly, “but Mrs Forrester has asked him, and he has accepted, and it was only with some difficulty that we persuaded her that Snairey’s choice of music might be, well, undistinguished. You don’t think you could get along with him, I suppose, just for the sake of peace?”

“My dear fellow,” said Cobbler, “my whole life is moved by the principle that the one thing which is more important than peace is music. It is because I believe that that I am poor. It is because I believe that that many people suppose that I am crazy. It is because I believe that that I have just said that I will take care of the music for your play. I shall get no money out of it, and my experience of theatre groups leads me to think that I shall get little thanks for it. If, as you suggest, I get along with old Snairey for the sake of peace, it will be your peace, and not mine. I have not often heard him attack anything which I would dignify with the name of music, but when I have done so, that music has been royally—indeed imperially and even papally—bitched. I shall have nothing to do with him, in any circumstances whatever.”