The Drums of Jeopardy - Page 102/202

There are some men who know a little about all things and a great deal

about many. Such a man was Cutty. But as he approached the counter

behind which stood an expectant clerk he felt for once that he was in a

far country. There were fiddles and fiddles, just as there were emeralds

and emeralds. Never again would he laugh over the story of the man who

thought Botticelli was a manufacturer of spool thread. He attacked the

problem, however, like the thoroughbred he was--frankly.

"I want to buy a violin," he began, knowing that in polite musical

circles the word fiddle was taboo. "I know absolutely nothing at all

about quality or price. Understand, though, while you might be able to

fool me, you wouldn't fool the man I'm buying it for. Now what would you

suggest?"

The clerk--a salesman familiar with certain urban types, thinly

including the Fifth Avenue, which came in for talking-machine

records--recognized in this well-dressed, attractive elderly man that

which he designated the swell. Hateful word, yes, but having a perfectly

legitimate niche, since in the minds of the hoi polloi it nicely

describes the differences between the poor gentleman and the gentleman

of leisure. To proceed with the digression, to no one is the word more

hateful than to the individual to whom it is applied. Cutty would have

blushed at the clerk's thought.

"Perhaps I'd better get the proprietor," was the clerk's suggestion.

"Good idea," Cutty agreed. "Take my card along with you." This was

a Fifth Avenue shop, and Cutty knew there would be a Who's Who or a

Bradstreet somewhere about.

In the interim he inspected the case-lined walls. Trombones. He

chuckled. Lucky that Hawksley's talent didn't extend in this direction.

True, he himself collected drums, but he did not play them. Something

odd about music; human beings had to have it, the very lowest in the

scale. A universal magic. He was himself very fond of good music; but

these days he fought shy of it; it had the faculty of sweeping him back

into the twenties and reincarnating vanished dreams.

After a certain length of time, from the corner of his eye he saw the

clerk returning with the proprietor, the latter wearing an amiable

smile, which probably connoted a delving into the aforesaid volumes of

attainment and worth. Cutty hoped this was so, as it would obviate the

necessity of going into details as to who he was and what he had.

"Your name is familiar to me," began the proprietor. "You collect

antique drums. My clerk tells me that you wish to purchase a good

violin."