Despite his frouziness, everybody who knew Bock liked him; those who heard him play loved him. There was a pathos, a tender, sympathetic quality in his touch, that one never forgot: it always seemed as if, somehow, ready tears lingered under his bow. “With a tone like Bock’s” was the highest compliment one could pay a musician. To Sanford this man’s heart was dearer than his genius. “Why, Bock, old man,” he called, “we didn’t expect you till eleven.” “Yes, I know, Henri, but ze first wiolin, he take my place. Zey will not know ze difference.” One fat hand was held up deprecatingly, the fingers outspread. “Everybody fan and drink ze beer. Ah, Meester Hardy, I have hear ze news; so you will leave ze brotherhood. And I hear,” lowering his voice and laying his other fat hand affectionately on Jack’s, “zat she ees most lofely. Ah, it ees ze best zing,” his voice rising again. “When ve get old and ugly like old Bock, and so heels over head wiz all sorts of big zings to build like Mr. Sanford, or like poor Smearly paint, paint, all ze time paint, it ees too late to zink of ze settle down. Ees it not so, you man Curran over zere, wiz your newspaper over your head?” This time his voice was flung straight at the recumbent editor as a climax to his breezy salutation. “Yes, you’re right, Bock; you’re ugly enough to crowd a dime museum, but I’ll forgive you everything if you’ll put some life into your strings. I heard your orchestra the other night, and the first and second violins ruined the overture. What the devil do you keep a lot of”— “What ees ze matter wiz ze overture, Meester Ole Bull?” said Bock, pitching his voice in a high key, squeezing down on the divan and pinching Curran’s arm with his fat fingers. “Everything was the matter. The brass drowned the strings, and Reynier might have had hair-oil on his bow for all the sound you heard. Then the tempo was a beat too slow.” “Henri Sanford, do you hear zis crazy man zat does not know one zing, and lie flat on his back and talk such nonsense? Ze wiolin, Meester Musical Editor Curran, must be pianissimo,—only ze leetle, ze ve’y leetle, you hear. Ze aria is carried by ze reeds.” “Carried by your grandmother!” said Curran, springing from the divan. “Here, Sam, put a light on the piano. Now listen, you pagan. Beethoven would get out of his grave if he could hear you murder his music. The three bars are so,”—touching the keys, “not so!” And thus the argument went on. Out on the balcony, Smearly and Quigley, the marine painter, who had just come in, were talking about the row at the Academy over the rejection of Morley’s picture, while the major was in full swing with Hardy, Sanford, and some of the later arrivals, including old Professor Max Shutters, the biologist, who had been so impressively introduced by Curran to the distinguished Pocomokian that the professor had at once mistaken the major for a brother scientist.