A sudden noise at my side attracted my ear. Turning, I saw Hautboy again, who very blithely reseated himself on the chair he had left.
I was behind time with my engagement, said Hautboy, so thought I would run back and rejoin you. But come, you have sat long enough here. Let us go to my rooms. It is only five minutes walk.
If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will, said Standard.
Fiddle! thought I hes a jigembob[144] fiddler then? No wonder genius declines to measure its pace to a fiddlers bow. My spleen was very strong on me now.
I will gladly fiddle you your fill, replied Hautboy to Standard. Come on.
In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of storehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained, piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all was charmingly clean and cosy.
Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle, and sitting down on a tall rickety stool, played away right merrily at Yankee Doodle[145] and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by something miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old stool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, every vestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the magical fiddle.
Something of an Orpheus[146], ah? said Standard, archly nudging me beneath the left rib.
And I, the charmed Bruin, murmured I.
The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the easy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition.
When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I earnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvelous Hautboy was.
Why, havent you seen him? And didnt you yourself lay his whole anatomy open on the marble slab at Taylors? What more can you possibly learn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in possession of all.
You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat you, who is Hautboy?
An extraordinary genius, Helmstone, said Standard, with sudden ardor, who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from city to city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But today he walks Broadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the elbow of the hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you see, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from house to house he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once with fame, he is now hilarious without it. With genius and without fame, he is happier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever.
His true name?
Let me whisper it in your ear.
What! O Standard, myself, as a child, I have shouted myself hoarse applauding that very name in the theatre.
I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received, said Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject.
His true name?
Let me whisper it in your ear.
What! O Standard, myself, as a child, I have shouted myself hoarse applauding that very name in the theatre.
I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received, said Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject.
Not a word of that, for heavens sake! cried I. If Cicero[147], traveling in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?
Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautboy.
Edward Page Mitchell
The Tachypomp
A Mathematical Demonstration
There was nothing mysterious about Professor Surds dislike for me. I was the only poor mathematician in an exceptionally mathematical class. The old gentleman sought the lecture-room every morning with eagerness, and left it reluctantly. For was it not a thing of joy to find seventy young men who, individually and collectively, preferred x to XX; who had rather differentiate than dissipate; and for whom the limbs of the heavenly bodies had more attractions than those of earthly stars upon the spectacular stage?
So affairs went on swimmingly between the Professor of Mathematics and the junior Class at Polyp University. In every man of the seventy the sage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place[148], of a Sturm[149], or of a Newton[150]. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through the pleasant valleys of conic sections, and beside the still waters of the integral calculus. Figuratively speaking, his problem was not a hard one. He had only to manipulate, and eliminate, and to raise to a higher power, and the triumphant result of examination day was assured.