He is a real
musician, you know, and the music he makes comes out of his
soul.
When it was all over and he and Mrs. Burns were gone, my tray
came in. This is a frightful confession, but I am not a real
musician; I merely love good music with some sort of
understanding of what it means to those who really care, as
Franz does. To me, after all the emotion, my tray looked like
a sort of solid rock that I could cling to. And I had a piece
of wonderful beefsteak--ah, now you are laughing! Never
mind--I'll show you the two scenes.
Upon the second sheet was something which made Jordan King open his
eyes. There were two little drawings--the simplest of pencil sketches,
yet executed with a spirit and skill which astonished him. The first was
of Franz himself, done in a dozen lines. There was no attempt at a
portrait, yet somehow Franz was there, in the very set of the head, the
angle of the lifted brow, the pose of the body, most of all in the
indication of the smiling mouth, the drooping eyelids. The second
picture was a funny sketch of a big-eyed girl devouring food from a
tray. Two lines made the pillows behind her, six outlined the tray, a
dozen more demonstrated plainly the famishing appetite with which the
girl was eating. It was all there--it was astonishing how it was all
there.
"My word!" he said as he laid down the sheets--and took them up again,
"that's artist work, whether she knows it or not.
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