|
+============================================+

For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded Jassy's
card in silence.

"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"

Jassy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.

"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking popular
music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the _Wiener_
conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly, y'understand,
still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets and even concerti and
symphonies till I am black in the face already and I couldn't pay my
laundry bill even."

For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and seized from the pile of
music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of Richard
Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated himself on the
stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he struck the opening
chords, and for more than ten minutes Jassy and Merech sat motionless
until the first movement was finished.

"When Strauss wrote that he could _oser_ pay his laundry bill either,"
Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down wearily at the table
and lit a cigarette.

"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss----"

"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If you
want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play for my
customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for all I am
telling you you should cut out this nonsense and _spiel_ a little music
once in a while."

It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk immediately
seated himself at the piano. This time he took from the pile of music
three small sheets, one of which he placed on the reading desk and the
other on Rekower's violin stand. After handing the other sheet to the
'cellist he plunged into a furious rendition of "Wildcat Rag."

In the front part of the cafe a group of men and women, whose clothes
and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper West Side,
broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition came to an end, and
in the midst of their shouting and stamping Jassy rose trembling from
his seat. He slunk between tables to the door, while Volkovisk began a
repetition of the number, and it was not until he had turned the corner
of the street and the melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he
slackened his pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his
shoulder and he turned to find Max Merec