"What started you?" French Janin asked.
"Jail," Harry Baggs answered.
"Of course you didn't take it," the blind man commented satirically;
"or else you went in to cover some one else."
"I took it, all right--eighteen dollars." He was silent for a moment;
then: "There was something I had to have and I didn't see any other way
of getting it. I had to have it. My stepfather had money that he put
away--didn't need. I wanted an accordion; I dreamed about it till I got
ratty, lifted the money, and he put me in jail for a year.
"I had the accordion hid. I didn't tell them where, and when I got out
I went right to it. I played some sounds, and--after all I'd done--they
weren't any good. I broke it up--and left."
"You were right," Janin told him; "the accordion is an impossible
instrument, a thing entirely vulgar. I know, for I am a musician, and
played the violin at the Opera Comique. You think I am lying; but you
are young and life is strange. I can tell you this: I, Janin, once led
the finale of Hamlet. I saw that the director was pale; I leaned
forward and he gave me the baton. I knew music. There were five staves
to conduct--at the Opera Comique."
He turned his sightless face toward Harry Baggs.
"That means little to you," he spoke sharply; "you know nothing. You
have never seen a gala audience on its feet; the roses--"
He broke off. His wasted palms rested on knees that resembled bones
draped with maculate clothing; his sere head fell forward.
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