im is a
thing to arouse the envy of the gods. Furthermore, as I have already
said, he is a musician of no mean order, and I know of no greater
pleasure than that of sitting by his side while he "potters through a
score," as he puts it. But there was a disappointment in store for us. I
called at the appointed hour and found the household more or less in
consternation. The cook had left, and a dinner of "cold things"
confronted us.

"She couldn't stand the organ," explained Carson. "She said it got on to
her nerves--'rumblin' like.'"

I gazed upon him in silent sympathy as we dined on cold roast beef,
stuffed olives, and ice cream.

"This is serious," my host observed as we sat over our coffee and cigars
after the repast. "That woman was the only decent cook we've managed to
secure in seven years, and, by Jingo, the minute she gets on to my taste
the organ gets on to her nerves and she departs!"

"One must eat," I observed.

"That's just it," said Carson. "If it comes to a question of cook or
organ the organ will have to go. She was right about it, though. The
organ does rumble like the dickens. Some of the bass notes make the
house buzz like an ocean-steamer blowing off steam." It was a
picturesque description, for I had noticed at times that when the organ
was being made to shriek fortissimo every bit of panelling in the house
seemed to rattle, and if a huge boiler of some sort suffering from
internal disturbance had been growling down in the cellar, the result
would have been quite similar.

"It may work out all right in time," Carson said. "The thing is new yet,
and you can't expect it to be mellow all at once. What I'm afraid of,
apart from the inability of our cook to stand the racket, is that this
quivering will structurally weaken the house. What do you think?"

"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Some of the wainscot panels rattle a bit,
but I imagine the house will stand it unless you go in too much for
Wagner. 'Tannhaeuser' or 'Siegfried' might shake a few beams loose, but
lighter music, I think, can be indulged in with impunity."

Time did not serve, as Carson had hoped, to mellow things. Indeed, the
succeeding weeks brought more trouble, and most of it came through the
organ. Some of the rattling panels, in spite of every effort to make
them fast, rattled the more. One night when the servants were alone in
the house, of its own volition the organ sent forth, to break the still
hours, a blood-curdling basso