stop to music as to many other things. For three
months the pianola has not been played by either of us. There are two
reasons for this: first, that we simply haven't the time now; and
secondly, that we are getting all the music we want from the flat
below. The flat below is learning "Tipperary" on one finger. He gets
as far as the farewell to Leicester Square, and then he breaks down;
the parting is too much for him.

I was not, then, surprised at the beginning of this month to find
Celia looking darkly at the pianola.

"It's very ugly," she began.

"We can't help our looks," I said in my grandmother's voice.

"A bookcase would be much prettier there."

"But not so tuneful."

"A pianola isn't tuneful if you never play it."

"True," I said.

Celia then became very alluring, and suggested that I might find
somebody who would like to be lent a delightful pianola for a year or
so by somebody whose delightful wife had her eye on a delightful
bookcase.

"I might," I said.

"Somebody," said Celia, "who isn't supplied with music from below."

I found John. He was quite pleased about it, and promised to return
the pianola when the war was over.

So on Wednesday it went. I was not sorry, because in its silence it
was far from beautiful, and we wanted another bookcase badly. But on
Tuesday evening--its last hours with us--I had to confess to a certain
melancholy. It is sad to part with an old and well-tried friend,
particularly when that friend is almost entirely responsible for your
marriage. I looked at the pianola and then I said to Celia, "I must
play it once again."

"Please," said Celia.

"The old masterpiece, I suppose?" I said, as I got it out.

"Do you think you ought to--now? I don't think I want to hear a charge
of the Uhlans--beasts; I want a charge of our own men."

"Art," I said grandly, "knows no frontiers." I suppose this has been
said by several people several times already, but for the moment both
Celia and I thought it was rather clever.

So I placed the roll in the pianola, sat down and began to play....

Ah, the dear old tune....

Dash it all!

"What's happened?" said Celia, breaking a silence which had become
alarming.

"I must have put it in wrong," I said.

I wound the roll off, put it in again, and tried a second time,
pedalling vigorously.

Dead silence....

Hush! A note ... another silence ... and then another note....

I pedalled through to the end. About five notes s