The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 993, January 7, 1899Various
General
The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX, No. 993, January 7, 1899
Various
Children's literature -- Periodicals
Nothing more was said by the old Professor or Herbert himself on the
subject of his musical education. The concert absorbed them both
entirely, and in the intervals between each item on the programme no
other subject was discussed by them but the music and the performers.
It was a shorter concert than usual, and as they were slowly making
for the door with the rest of the crowd, the old man said to his young
friend, “Can you come home with me to-night, my dear boy? I have
something more to say to you, and I cannot say it here. I do not think
it will make you very late.”
“I shall be very glad to,” replied Herbert, “and very glad to hear
anything from you. You are the only person in the world to whom I can
go for advice about music. It is very good of you to take so much
interest in me.”
At Piccadilly Circus they got into that red omnibus which is
affectionately called by those who use it constantly “The Kennington
Lobster,” and travelled over Westminster Bridge some little distance
down the wide Kennington Road.
“Green Street,” said the Professor after a time, and the conductor
stopped the omnibus almost immediately.
They got down and turned into a little street on the right-hand of the
main road; one of those streets still to be found here and there in
some of the older parts of London, though they are fast being swept
away by the remorseless builder to make room for the huge piles of
model dwellings that are springing up on every side.
It was a narrow street of small but still respectable-looking houses,
not detached. Each had a tiny square of garden in front of its one
window, and a path of flagstones led from the gate to the front door.
The old man stopped at No. 9, opened the door with a latch-key, and led
the way up a narrow staircase to the second floor.
“Wait a moment till we have a light,” he said; “you may fall over
something in my tiny room.”
It was a tiny room indeed that Herbert found himself in when the
Professor had lighted the lamp, and, as might have been expected, not
a luxurious one; but it was as neatly arranged as a ship’s cabin, and
everything was scrupulously clean.
On one side of the room stood a very narrow bed covered with a
patchwork quilt, at its foot a tiny square washstand of painted deal.
An old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers piled high with books, a
small deal table in the middle of the room, an old stuffed chair by the
fireplace, and a low wooden one by the head of the bed completed the
tale of furniture, with the exception of—a piano!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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