Somewhere about the end of the fourth week Carson invited me to dinner. The organ was all right again, he said. The water supply was sufficient, and if I cared to I might dine with him, and afterward spend an evening sitting upon the organ bench while Carson himself manipulated the keys. I naturally accepted the invitation, since, in addition to his other delightful qualities, Carson is a past grand-master in the art of giving dinners. He is a man with a taste, and a dinner good enough for him is a thing to arouse the envy of the gods. Furthermore, as I have already said, he is a musician of no mean order, and I know of no greater pleasure than that of sitting by his side while he "potters through a score," as he puts it. But there was a disappointment in store for us. I called at the appointed hour and found the household more or less in consternation. The cook had left, and a dinner of "cold things" confronted us. "She couldn't stand the organ," explained Carson. "She said it got on to her nerves--'rumblin' like.'" I gazed upon him in silent sympathy as we dined on cold roast beef, stuffed olives, and ice cream. "This is serious," my host observed as we sat over our coffee and cigars after the repast. "That woman was the only decent cook we've managed to secure in seven years, and, by Jingo, the minute she gets on to my taste the organ gets on to her nerves and she departs!" "One must eat," I observed. "That's just it," said Carson. "If it comes to a question of cook or organ the organ will have to go. She was right about it, though. The organ does rumble like the dickens. Some of the bass notes make the house buzz like an ocean-steamer blowing off steam." It was a picturesque description, for I had noticed at times that when the organ was being made to shriek fortissimo every bit of panelling in the house seemed to rattle, and if a huge boiler of some sort suffering from internal disturbance had been growling down in the cellar, the result would have been quite similar. "It may work out all right in time," Carson said. "The thing is new yet, and you can't expect it to be mellow all at once. What I'm afraid of, apart from the inability of our cook to stand the racket, is that this quivering will structurally weaken the house. What do you think?" "Oh, I don't know," I said. "Some of the wainscot panels rattle a bit, but I imagine the house will stand it unless you go in too much for Wagner. 'Tannhäuser' or 'Siegfried' might shake a few beams loose, but lighter music, I think, can be indulged in with impunity."