The trouble was he didn't really know John Harper. No one did. A bachelor, Harper lived alone, thought alone--and suffered alone. He hated the futility of his life, the work he was doing, the passing of unfulfilled days and nights. He felt a strong pull of destiny he could neither explain nor deny; an unreasoning certainty that he, John Harper was meant for better things; or perhaps a single better thing. He lived with this certainty while the unfulfilled days and nights piled up. Until the misery became a pain and possibly demanded some sort of recognition by its very existence. At any rate, the morning of the day he quit his job, he had just awakened to the old familiar dread of the day ahead; a dread almost akin to a physical sickness. He was sure he did not go back to sleep, but he clearly saw, on the floor within range of his eyes, a television set. The picture was bright and clear--a famous newscaster with the smile known from coast to coast and the rat-tat-tat voice that was his trademark. He was beginning his broadcast with the standard opening line: "_And now, folks--what's been going on in the world? John Harper, the great concert pianist--the man who brought long-hair music into the home--the man loved by millions, will--_" The voice and the image vanished. Then the set faded, and John Harper lay tense in the bed in his shoddy little room. But a different John Harper now. In an instant he became a dedicated man knowing he had been building up to this moment for years. This was the incident Sam Paine did not know of; nor did anyone except John Harper himself. He had a little money saved up--a few hundred dollars--and he went straight to a music school. His difficulty was that he could not camouflage his ambition--or rather his intent--and after stating exactly what he proposed to do, he was turned down by five reputable maestros in a row. So he gave up seeking instruction and rented a piano. He was fortunately situated in that his room lay at the back of the resident hotel where he lived and the walls were as thick as the building was old and shoddy looking. He bought some instruction books at a second hand store and went to work. He practiced, plowing doggedly through the intricacies of the notes and scales until his money ran out. Then he got a job washing dishes and practiced all night. Until he was able to present himself again at a music school where the maestro was, fortunately, both honest and possessed of a conscience. His honesty said, send this man away. But John Harper had just enough pathetic skill and foggy talent that the instructor's conscience dictated the final policy. "I will teach you," he said. Adding to himself, _It will be an act of charity. Nothing more._ He would have been astounded, however, had he known that four short months before John Harper had not known even the scale.