Humoresque | Page 8

princesses. To have kept you all these years--mine--is it any wonder, son, I never stop praying my thanks for you? You don't believe Hancock, son, the way he keeps always teasing you that you should have a--what he calls--affair--a love-affair? Such talk is not nice, Leon--an affair!"
"Love-affair poppycock!" said Leon Kantor, lifting his mother's face and kissing her on eyes about ready to tear. "Why, I've got something, ma, right here in my heart for you that--"
"Leon, be careful your shirt-front!"
"That's so--so what you call 'tender,' for my best sweetheart that I--Oh, love-affair--poppycock!"
She would not let her tears come.
"My boy--my wonder-boy!"
"There goes the overture, ma."
"Here, darlink--your glass of water."
"I can't stand it in here; I'm suffocating!"
"Got your mute in your pocket, son?"
"Yes, ma; for God's sake, yes! Yes! Don't keep asking things!"
"Ain't you ashamed, Leon, to be in such an excitement! For every concert you get worse."
"The chairs--they'll breathe on nay neck."
"Leon, did mamma promise you those chairs would be moved?"
"Where's Hancock?"
"Say--I'm grateful if he stays out. It took me enough work to get this room cleared. You know your papa how he likes to drag in the whole world to show you off--always just before you play. The minute he walks in the room right away he gets everybody to trembling just from his own excitements. I dare him this time he should bring people. No dignity has that man got, the way he brings every one."
Even upon her words came a rattling of door, Of door-knob, and a voice through the clamor.
"Open--quick--Sarah! Leon!"
A stiffening raced over Mrs. Kantor, so that she sat rigid on her chair-edge, lips compressed, eye darkly upon the shivering door.
"Open--Sarah!"
With a narrowing glance, Mrs. Kantor laid to her lips a forefinger of silence.
"Sarah, it's me! Quick, I say!"
Then Leon Kantor sprang up, the old prehensile gesture of curving fingers shooting up.
"For God's sake, ma, let him in! I can't stand that infernal battering."
"Abrahm, go away! Leon's got to have quiet before his concert."
"Just a minute, Sarah. Open quick!"
With a spring his son was at the door, unlocking and flinging it back.
"Come in, pa."
The years had weighed heavily upon Abrahm Kantor in avoirdupois only. He was himself plus eighteen years, fifty pounds, and a new sleek pomposity that was absolutely oleaginous. It shone roundly in his face, doubling of chin, in the bulge of waistcoat, heavily gold-chained, and in eyes that behind the gold-rimmed glasses gave sparklingly forth his estate of well-being.
"Abrahm, didn't I tell you not to dare to--"
On excited balls of feet that fairly bounced him, Abrahm Kantor burst in.
"Leon--mamma--I got out here an old friend--Sol Ginsberg. You remember, mamma, from brasses--"
"Abrahm--not now--"
"Go 'way with your 'not now'! I want Leon should meet him. Sol, this is him--a little grown up from such a nebich like you remember him--_nu_? Sarah, you remember Sol Ginsberg? Say--I should ask you if you remember your right hand! Ginsberg & Esel, the firm. This is his girl, a five years' contract signed yesterday--five hundred dollars an opera for a beginner--six r?les--not bad--_nu_?"
"Abrahm, you must ask Mr. Ginsberg please to excuse Leon until after his concert--"
"Shake hands with him, Ginsberg. He's had his hand shook enough in his life, and by kings, to shake it once more with an old bouncer like you!"
Mr. Ginsberg, not unlike his colleague in rotundities, held out a short, a dimpled hand.
"It's a proud day," he said, "for me to shake the hands from mine old friend's son and the finest violinist livink to-day. My little daughter--"
"Yes, yes, Gina. Here, shake hands with him. Leon, they say a voice like a fountain. Gina Berg--eh, Ginsberg--is how you stage-named her? You hear, mamma, how fancy--Gina Berg? We go hear her, eh?"
There was about Miss Gina Berg, whose voice could soar to the tirra-lirra of a lark and then deepen to mezzo, something of the actual slimness of the poor, maligned Elsa so long buried beneath the buxomness of divas. She was like a little flower that in its crannied nook keeps dewy longest.
"How do you do, Leon Kantor?"
There was a whir through her English of three acquired languages.
"How do you do?"
"We--father and I--traveled once all the way from Brussels to Dresden to hear you. It was worth it. I shall never forget how you played the 'Humoresque.' It made me laugh and cry."
"You like Brussels?"
She laid her little hand to her heart, half closing her eyes.
"I will never be so happy again as with the sweet little people of Brussels."
"I, too, love Brussels. I studied there four years with Ahrenfest."
"I know you did. My teacher, Lyndahl, in Berlin, was his brother-in-law."
"You have studied with Lyndahl?"
"He is my master."
"I--Will I some time hear you sing?"
"I am not yet great. When I am foremost like you, yes."
"Gina--Gina Berg; that is a beautiful name to make famous."
"You