A Little World. George Manville Fenn
Volume Two—Chapter Twenty Six.
Volume Three—Chapter One.
Volume Three—Chapter Thirteen.
Volume Three—Chapter Fourteen.
Volume Three—Chapter Seventeen.
Volume Three—Chapter Eighteen.
Volume Three—Chapter Nineteen.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty One.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Two.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Three.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Four.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Five.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Six.
Volume Three—Chapter Twenty Seven.
Volume One—Chapter Two.
Jared at Home.
Jared Pellet sat in the front parlour—pro tem, his workshop—while, to keep the sun from troubling him, Patty had been pinning up the broad sheet of a newspaper over the window, and now descended by means of a chair. For jared was busy working a curious-looking pair of bellows with his foot, and making a little tongue of metal to vibrate with a most ear-piercing but doleful note in the process of being tuned, before being returned to the German concertina, where its duty was to occupy the part of leading note in the major scale of C.
“Hum-um,” sang Jared, checking the current of air, and striking a tuning-fork upon his little bench. “Hum-um; a bit flat, eh, Patty?”
“Just a little,” said Patty, looking up from her work.
“But there, only think!” cried Jared, dropping his tuning-fork, leaving his task, and crossing over to an old harmonium, over whose keys he ran his bony fingers; “only think if I could—only think if I could get it! Fifty pounds a year for two practices a week, and duty three times on Sundays. Black, of course, for your mother; but what coloured silk shall it be for you, eh, Patty?”
“Silk?” said Patty wonderingly, and her eyes grew more round.
“Yes, silk—dress, you know,” said Jared, jumping up again from the harmonium, and walking excitedly about the room. “Only think if I could get it—Jared Pellet—no, Mr. Jared Pellet; or ought it to be esquire, eh, Patty? Organist of St. Runwald’s. But there,” he continued, with a grim smile, “this is counting the chickens before they are hatched, and when there has not been one solitary peck at the shell. Heigho, Patty, if the wind has not been and blown down my card house.”
“Is any one at home?” said a high-pitched, harsh voice, as the door was quietly opened, and a little yellow-looking Frenchman entered, a tasselled cane in one hand, a cigarette being held between the fingers of the other, but only to be changed to the hand which held the cane, that its owner might raise the pinched hat worn on one side of his head, and salute gravely the two occupants of the room.
“Aha! the good-day to you bose. The good Monsieur Pellet is well? and you, my dear child, you do bloom again like the flowers.”
Patty smiled as she held out her hand; the little Frenchman gravely raising it to his lips, and then crossing to where Jared had stood, looking ten years older, till, reseating himself at his bench, he began to make the metal tongue vibrate furiously, sending a very storm of wind through it, so rapidly he worked his foot; now making the note too sharp, now too flat, and taking twice as long as usual to complete his task.
“No, no, mon ami; he is too sharps—now too flats again. Aha, it is bad!” exclaimed the visitor, dropping cane and cigarette to thrust both fingers into his ears as Jared brought forth a most atrocious shriek from the tortured tongue.
“My ear’s gone completely, I believe,” exclaimed Jared, looking in a bewildered way at his visitor.
“Ah, no, no; try him again—yais, try him again;” and the visitor leaned over the performer. “Ta-ta” he hummed, nodding his head, and beating time with a finger. “Better—yes, better—better still—one leetle touch, and—aha, it is done—so!” he exclaimed triumphantly, as the little note now sounded clear and pure.
“And now I must have two string for my violin. They do wear out so fast.” Which was a fact, and nothing could have more fully displayed Monsieur Canau’s friendship than his constant usage of Jared Pellet’s strings, best Roman by name, worst English by nature. “Why do you not come to-day?” he continued, as Patty opened a tin canister, and emptied a dozen of the transparent rings of catgut upon the table.
“I