rty years of
age, striding beside the cart with a non-commissioned military bearing,
and (as he strode) spinning in the air a cane. The fellow's clothes were
very bad, but he looked clean and self-reliant.

"I'm only a beginner," gasped the blushing Harker, "I didn't think
anybody could hear me."

"Well, I like that!" returned the other. "You're a pretty old beginner.
Come, I'll give you a lead myself. Give us a seat here beside you."

The next moment the military gentleman was perched on the cart, pipe in
hand. He gave the instrument a knowing rattle on the shaft, mouthed it,
appeared to commune for a moment with the muse, and dashed into "The
girl I left behind me." He was a great, rather than a fine, performer;
he lacked the bird-like richness; he could scarce have extracted all the
honey out of "Cherry Ripe"; he did not fear--he even ostentatiously
displayed and seemed to revel in--the shrillness of the instrument; but
in fire, speed, precision, evenness, and fluency; in linked agility of
_jimmy_--a technical expression, by your leave, answering to _warblers_
on the bagpipe; and perhaps, above all, in that inspiring side-glance of
the eye, with which he followed the effect and (as by a human appeal)
eked out the insufficiency of his performance: in these, the fellow
stood without a rival. Harker listened: "The girl I left behind me"
filled him with despair; "The Soldier's Joy" carried him beyond jealousy
into generous enthusiasm.

"Turn about," said the military gentleman, offering the pipe.

"O, not after you!" cried Harker; "you're a professional."

"No," said his companion; "an amatyure like yourself. That's one style
of play, yours is the other, and I like it best. But I began when I was
a boy, you see, before my taste was formed. When you're my age you'll
play that thing like a cornet-a-piston. Give us that air again; how does
it go?" and he affected to endeavour to recall "The Ploughboy."

A timid, insane hope sprang in the breast of Harker. Was it possible?
Was there something in his playing? It had, indeed, seemed to him at
times as if he got a kind of a richness out of it. Was he a genius?
Meantime the military gentleman stumbled over the air.

"No," said the unhappy Harker, "that's not quite it. It goes this
way--just to show you." And, taking the pipe between his lips, he
sealed his doom. When he had played the air, and then a second time, and
a third; when the military gentleman had tried it once