the composer of your concerto have his own way? You should not
correct him--it is most impolite."

"What--what do you mean?" stammered Lynn.

"Nothing," said the Master, "only, if you have no gifts, you should play
G sharp where it is written, instead of G natural. It is not what one
might call an improvement in the concerto."

Lynn flushed, and began to play the movement over again, but before he
reached the bar in question he had forgotten. When he came to it he
played G natural again, and instantly perceived his mistake.

The Master laughed. "Genius," he said, "must have its own way. It is not
to be held down by the written score. It must make changes, flourishes,
improvements. It is one pity that the composer cannot know."

"I forgot," temporised Lynn.

"So? Then why not take up the parlour organ? You should have an
instrument on which the notes are all made. I should not advise the
banjo, or even the concertina. The organ that turns by the handle would
be better yet. To make the notes--that is most difficult, is it not so?
Now, then, the adagio. Let us see how much you can better that."

Lynn played it correctly, and with intelligence, but without feeling.

"One moment," said the Master. "There is something I do not understand.
That adagio is one of the most beautiful things ever written. It is full
of one heartache and has in it many tears. Your aunt, you say, lies dead
in your house, and yet you play it like one machine. I cannot see!
Perhaps you had quarrelled?"

"No," returned Lynn, in astonishment, "I was very, very fond of her."

There was a long silence, then the Master sighed. "The thing means more
than the person," he said. "Whoever is dead, if it is only one little
bird, it should make you feel sad. But it waits. Before you have
finished, the world will do one of three things to you. It will make
your heart very soft, very hard, or else break it, so. No one escapes."

"By the way," began Lynn, eager to change the subject, "Doctor
Brinkerhoff told me to ask you to come and play at the funeral to-morrow
at four o'clock. He said it was his wish."

The Master's face was troubled. "Once," he said, "I promised one very
angry lady that I would not go in that house again, and I have kept mine
word. It was only once I went, but that was too much. Still, it was
twenty-five years and more past, and she has long since been dead. Death
frees one from a promise, is it not so?"

"Of course," replied Lynn,