"Got your mute in your pocket, son?" "Yes, ma; for God's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things." "Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement? For every concert you get worse." "The chairs--they'll breathe on my neck." "Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?" "Where's Hancock?" "Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this room cleared. You know your papa he likes to drag in the whole world to show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the room, right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people--no dignity has that man got, the way he brings everyone." Even upon her words came a rattling of door, of door-knob and a voice through the clamour. "Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!" A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door. "Open--Sarah!" With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of silence. "Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!" Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving fingers shooting up. "For God's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering." "Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert." "Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!" With a spring, his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back. "Come in, pa." The years had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparklingly forth his estate of well-being. "Abrahm, didn't I tell you not to dare to--" On excited balls of feet that fairly bounced him, Abrahm Kantor burst in. "Leon--mamma--I got out here an old friend--Sol Ginsberg--you remember, mamma, from brasses--" "Abrahm--not now--" "Go way with your 'not now!' I want Leon should meet him. Sol, this is him--a little grown-up from such a _Nebich_ like you remember him--_nu_? Sarah, you remember Sol Ginsberg? Say--I should ask you if you remember your right hand? Ginsberg & Esel, the firm. This is his girl, a five years' contract signed yesterday--five hundred dollars an opera for a beginner--six rôles--not bad--_nu_?" "Abrahm, you must ask Mr. Ginsberg please to excuse Leon until after his concert--" "Shake hands with him, Ginsberg. He's had his hand shook enough in his life, and by kings, too--shake it once more with an old bouncer like you!" Mr. Ginsberg, not unlike his colleague in rotundities, held out a short, a dimpled hand. "It's a proud day," he said, "for me to shake the hands from mine old friend's son and the finest violinist living to-day. My little daughter--"