himself--which is some!

"'Ah, yes, the artist teep,' says she,'the most complex, the most
baffling of all.'

"That was a kind of a sickish jolt to me--the idea that something as low
in the animal kingdom as Wilbur could baffle anyone--but I thinks,
'Shucks! Wait till he lines up alongside of a regular human man like
Chet Timmins!'

"I had Chet up to supper again. He still choked on words of one
syllable if Nettie so much as glanced at him, and turned all sorts of
painful colours like a cheap rug. But I keep thinking the piece will fix
that all right.

"At eight o'clock Wilbur sifted in with his records and something else
flat and thin, done up in paper that I didn't notice much at the time.
My dear heart, how serious he was! As serious as--well, I chanced to be
present at the house of mourning when the barber come to shave old Judge
Armstead after he'd passed away--you know what I mean--kind of like him
Wilbur was, talking subdued and cat-footing round very solemn and
professional. I thought he'd never get that machine going. He cleaned
it, and he oiled it, and he had great trouble picking out the right
fibre needle, holding six or eight of 'em up to the light, doing secret
things to the machine's inwards, looking at us sharp as if we oughtn't
to be talking even then, and when she did move off I'm darned if he
didn't hang in a strained manner over that box, like he was the one that
was doing it all and it wouldn't get the notes right if he took his
attention off.

"It was a first-class record, I'll say that. It was the male
barytone--one of them pleading voices that get all into you. It wasn't
half over before I seen Nettie was strongly moved, as they say, only she
was staring at Wilbur, who by now was leading the orchestra with one
graceful arm and looking absorbed and sodden, like he done it
unconsciously. Chester just set there with his mouth open, like
something you see at one of these here aquariums.

"We moved round some when it was over, while Wilbur was picking out just
the right needle for the other record, and so I managed to cut that lump
of a Chester out of the bunch and hold him on the porch till I got
Nettie out, too. Then I said 'Sh-h-h!' so they wouldn't move when Wilbur
let the mezzo-soprano start. And they had to stay out there in the
golden moonlight with love's young dream and everything. The lady singer
was good, too. No use in talking, that song must have done a lot of
heart work right amo