A Cathedral Singer | Page 8

see that house in the middle of the block, the
little old one between the two big ones?"
The man did not feel sure.
"Well, Mister, you see the statue of Washington and Lafayette?"
The man was certain he saw Washington and Lafayette.
"Well, from there you follow my finger along the row of houses till you
come to the littlest, oldest, dingiest one. You see it now, don't you? We
live up under the roof."

"What is the number?"
"It isn't any number. It's half a number. We live in the half that isn't
numbered; the other half gets the number."
"And you take your music lessons in one half?"
"Why, yes, Mister. Why not?"
"On a piano?"
"Why, yes, Mister; on my piano."
"Oh, you have a piano, have you?"
"There isn't any sound in about half the keys. Granny says the time has
come to rent a better one. She has gone over to the art school to-day to
pose to get the money."
A chill of silence fell between the talkers, the one looking up and the
other looking down. The man's next question was put in a more
guarded tone:
"Does your mother pose as a model?"
"No, Mister, she doesn't pose as a model. She's posing as herself. She
said I must have a teacher. Mister, were you ever poor?"
The man looked the boy over from head to foot.
"Do you think you are poor?" he asked.
The good-natured reply came back in a droll tone:
"Well, Mister, we certainly aren't rich."
"Let us see," objected the man, as though this were a point which had
better not be yielded, and he began with a voice of one reckoning up
items: "Two feet, each cheap at, say, five millions. Two hands--five

millions apiece for hands. At least ten millions for each eye. About the
same for the ears. Certainly twenty millions for your teeth. Forty
millions for your stomach. On the whole, at a rough estimate you must
easily be worth over one hundred millions. There are quite a number of
old gentlemen in New York, and a good many young ones, who would
gladly pay that amount for your investments, for your securities."
The lad with eager upturned countenance did not conceal his
amusement while the man drew this picture of him as a living ragged
gold-mine, as actually put together and made up of pieces of fabulous
treasure. A child's notion of wealth is the power to pay for what it has
not. The wealth that childhood is, escapes childhood; it does not escape
the old. What most concerned the lad as to these priceless feet and
hands and eyes and ears was the hard-knocked-in fact that many a time
he ached throughout this reputed treasury of his being for a five-cent
piece, and these reputed millionaires, acting together and doing their
level best, could not produce one.
Nevertheless, this fresh and never-before-imagined image of his
self-riches amused him. It somehow put him over into the class of
enormously opulent things; and finding himself a little lonely on that
new landscape, he cast about for some object of comparison. Thus his
mind was led to the richest of all near-by objects.
"If I were worth a hundred million," he said, with a satisfied twinkle in
his eyes, "I would be as rich as the cathedral."
A significant silence followed. The man broke it with a grave surprised
inquiry:
"How did you happen to think of the cathedral?"
"I didn't happen to think of it; I couldn't help thinking of it."
"Have you ever been in the cathedral?" inquired the man more gravely
still.
"Been in it! We go there all the time. It's our church. Why, good Lord!

Mister, we are descended from a bishop!"
The man laughed outright long and heartily.
"Thank you for telling me," he said as one who suddenly feels himself
to have become a very small object through being in the neighborhood
of such hereditary beatitudes and ecclesiastical sanctities. "Are you,
indeed? I am glad to know. Indeed, I am!"
"Why, Mister, we have been watching the cathedral from our windows
for years. We can see the workmen away up in the air as they finish one
part and then another part. I can count the Apostles on the roof. You
begin with James the Less and keep straight on around until you come
out at Simon. Big Jim and Pete are in the middle of the row." He
laughed.
"Surely you are not going to speak of an apostle as Pete! Do you think
that is showing proper respect to an apostle?"
"But he was Pete when he was little. He wasn't an apostle then and
didn't have any respect."
"And you mustn't call an apostle Big Jim!