'Got it here. Hand me my glasses, Bill, will you. Thanks.' McGibbon was sitting up, his face all lather, digging in his pocket. He produced a clipping. Read aloud with gusto:--
'"Mrs Stelton's art has deepened and broadened appreciably since she last appeared in Sunbury. Always gifted with a splendid singing organ, always charming in personality and profoundly, rhythmically musical in temperament, she now has added a superstructure of technical authority which gives to each passage, whether bravura or pianissimo, a quality and distinction."'
McGibbon was momentarily choked by his own almost noiseless laughter. Bill pushed his head down and went swiftly to work on his right cheek. Two other customers had come in.
'Great stuff that!' observed McGibbon cautiously, under the razor. '"Profoundly, rhythmically musical in temperament "! "A superstructure of technical authority"! Great! Fine! That boy'll do something yet. Handled right. Wish he was working for me.'
Mr Boice, from whom sounds had been coming for several moments, now raised his voice. It was the first time Heinie had ever heard him raise it. Bill paused, razor in air, and glanced around. Pinkie Potter looked up from the shoes he was polishing.
'Well,' he roared huskily, 'what in hell's the matter with that!'
Just then Bill turned McGibbon's head the other way. He too raised his voice. But cheerfully.
'Nothing much. Nice lot o' words. Only Mrs Stelton wasn't there. Sprained her ankle in the Chicago station on the way out.'
Bill Schwartz had a trumpet-like Prussian voice. The situation seemed to him to contain the elements of humour. He laughed boisterously.
Heinie Schultz, more politic, tittered softly, shears against mouth.
Pinkie Potter laughed convulsively, and beat out an intricate rag-time tattoo on his bootblack's stand with his brush.
It was Mr Boice's fixed habit to go on, toward noon, to the post-office. Instead, to-day, he returned to the _Voice_ office.
He seated himself at his desk for a quarter of an hour, doing nothing. He had the faculty of sitting still, ruminating.
Finally he reached out for the two-foot rule that always lay on his desk, and carefully measured a certain article in last week's paper. Then did a little figuring.