ted, and I forgot all about it until the next Friday evening,
when, just as I was about to shake the dust of Cambridge Heath off my
shoes, my cleaner, rising from her scrubbing, wiped her hands on her
apron, produced two large limp sheets of white paper which resolved
themselves into the music I ought to have had and hadn't, and pressed
them upon me with all the eagerness of a more than cheerful giver.

A kind of panic seized me, for on Friday evenings I make the Academy
of Music as it were a half-way house on my way home. Under the
cleaner's kind and beaming glance there was nothing to do but put them
into the attache case in which I carry my music and try to believe
that, wonderful man as he is, even my Professor wouldn't be able to
see inside it when it was shut, in fact that it only rested with me to
be quite sure that in his presence I only took out Chopin and not the
gentleman who was interested in farming.

And I managed nicely. I took out the "Nocturnes" and shut the case
up again before the cleverest (and nicest) of Professors could have
guessed the company they were keeping, and he was graciously pleased
to nod, instead of shaking his head, for most of the three-quarters of
an hour. He really must have been pleased with me, for at 7.45 he told
me that I showed marked improvement, and then kept me till 7.49 while
he explained that a _flair_ for the best of music such as I exhibited
was both uncommon and, from a Professor's point of view, exceeding
enjoyable. At 7.50--he, benign, I blushful--we approached the
attache-case.

"Allow me," said my Professor, reaching for it to replace Chopin; but
I snatched it up before he could get it. Like most truly great men he
is a little absent-minded, and he didn't seem to notice anything, but
just held out his hand in farewell. But when my Professor shakes
hands it means more than that; it means benediction, recognition,
salutation--lots of things; for it is rumoured at the Academy that he
never bestows that honour on any save those whom he regards as kindred
spirits, acolytes at the altar of Music, personalities, not pupils.

And then my attache-case opened itself quietly, after the manner of
attache-cases, and laid "'Ow're you goin' to keep 'em?" and "The
Maxeema" right side up, and their names in such large print too, like
an offering at his wonderful feet. Trembling at the knees I said:--

"My cleaner gave them to me."

But he looked at me and went on looking, and