Chapter 4

The guests were assembled as usual. The oatmeal course had been eaten in
silence. In the Idiot's eye there was a cold glitter of expectancy--a
glitter that boded ill for the man who should challenge him to
controversial combat--and there seemed also to be, judging from sundry
winks passed over the table and kicks passed under it, an understanding
to which he and the genial gentleman who occasionally imbibed were
parties.

As the School-master sampled his coffee the genial gentleman who
occasionally imbibed broke the silence.

"I missed you at the concert last night, Mr. Idiot," said he.

"Yes," said the Idiot, with a caressing movement of the hand over his
upper lip; "I was very sorry, but I couldn't get around last night. I
had an engagement with a number of friends at the athletic club. I
meant to have dropped you a line in the afternoon telling you about it,
but I forgot it until it was too late. Was the concert a success?"

"Very successful indeed. The best one, in fact, we have had this season,
which makes me regret all the more deeply your absence," returned the
genial gentleman, with a suggestion of a smile playing about his lips.
"Indeed," he added, "it was the finest one I've ever seen."

"The finest one you've what?" queried the School-master, startled at the
verb.

"The finest one I've ever seen," replied the genial gentleman. "There
were only ten performers, and really, in all my experience as an
attendant at concerts, I never saw such a magnificent rendering of
Beethoven as we had last night. I wish you could have been there. It was
a sight for the gods."

"I don't believe," said the Idiot, with a slight cough that may have
been intended to conceal a laugh--and that may also have been the result
of too many cigarettes--"I don't believe it could have been any more
interesting than a game of pool I heard at the club."

"It appears to me," said the Bibliomaniac to the School-master, "that
the popping sounds we heard late last night in the Idiot's room may have
some connection with the present mode of speech these two gentlemen
affect."

"Let's hear them out," returned the School-master, "and then we'll take
them into camp, as the Idiot would say."

"I don't know about that," replied the genial gentleman. "I've seen a
great many concerts, and I've heard a great many good games of pool, but
the concert last night was simply a ravishing spectacle. We had a Cuban
pianist there who played the orchestration of the first act of
_Parsifal_ with surprising agility. As far as I could see, he didn't
miss