Michael | Page 7

Can't you manage to for a day or two, and help things along? Aunt Barbara will be there."
Francis consulted a small, green morocco pocket-book.
"Can't to-morrow," he said, "nor yet the day after. But perhaps I could get a few days' leave next week."
"Next week's no use. I go to Baireuth next week."
"Baireuth? Who's Baireuth?" asked Francis.
"Oh, a man I know. His other name was Wagner, and he wrote some tunes."
Francis nodded.
"Oh, but I've heard of him," he said. "They're rather long tunes, aren't they? At least I found them so when I went to the opera the other night. Go on with your plans, Mike. What do you mean to do after that?"
"Go on to Munich and hear the same tunes over, again. After that I shall come back and settle down in town and study."
"Play the piano?" asked Francis, amiably trying to enter into his cousin's schemes.
Michael laughed.
"No doubt that will come into it," he said. "But it's rather as if you told somebody you were a soldier, and he said: 'Oh, is that quick march?'"
"So it is. Soldiering largely consists of quick march, especially when it's more than usually hot."
"Well, I shall learn to play the piano," said Michael.
"But you play so rippingly already," said Francis cordially. "You played all those songs the other night which you had never seen before. If you can do that, there is nothing more you want to learn with the piano, is there?"
"You are talking rather as father will talk," observed Michael.
"Am I? Well, I seem to be talking sense."
"You weren't doing what you seemed, then. I've got absolutely everything to learn about the piano."
Francis rose.
"Then it is clear I don't understand anything about it," he said. "Nor, I suppose, does Uncle Robert. But, really, I rather envy you, Mike. Anyhow, you want to do and be something so much that you are gaily going to face unpleasantnesses with Uncle Robert about it. Now, I wouldn't face unpleasantnesses with anybody about anything I wanted to do, and I suppose the reason must be that I don't want to do anything enough."
"The malady of not wanting," quoted Michael.
"Yes, I've got that malady. The ordinary things that one naturally does are all so pleasant, and take all the time there is, that I don't want anything particular, especially now that you've been such a brick--"
"Stop it," said Michael.
"Right; I got it in rather cleverly. I was saying that it must be rather nice to want a thing so much that you'll go through a lot to get it. Most fellows aren't like that."
"A good many fellows are jelly-fish," observed Michael.
"I suppose so. I'm one, you know. I drift and float. But I don't think I sting. What are you doing to-night, by the way?"
"Playing the piano, I hope. Why?"
"Only that two fellows are dining with me, and I thought perhaps you would come. Aunt Barbara sent me the ticket for a box at the Gaiety, too, and we might look in there. Then there's a dance somewhere."
"Thanks very much, but I think I won't," said Michael. "I'm rather looking forward to an evening alone."
"And that's an odd thing to look forward to," remarked Francis.
"Not when you want to play the piano. I shall have a chop here at eight, and probably thump away till midnight."
Francis looked round for his hat and stick.
"I must go," he said. "I ought to have gone long ago, but I didn't want to. The malady came in again. Most of the world have got it, you know, Michael."
Michael rose and stood by his tall cousin.
"I think we English have got it," he said. "At least, the English you and I know have got it. But I don't believe the Germans, for instance, have. They're in deadly earnest about all sorts of things--music among them, which is the point that concerns me. The music of the world is German, you know!"
Francis demurred to this.
"Oh, I don't think so," he said. "This thing at the Gaiety is ripping, I believe. Do come and see."
Michael resisted this chance of revising his opinion about the German origin of music, and Francis drifted out into Piccadilly. It was already getting on for seven o'clock, and the roadway and pavements were full of people who seemed rather to contradict Michael's theory that the nation generally suffered from the malady of not wanting, so eagerly and numerously were they on the quest for amusement. Already the street was a mass of taxicabs and private motors containing, each one of them, men and women in evening dress, hurrying out to dine before the theatre or the opera. Bright, eager faces peered out, with sheen of silk and glitter of gems; they all seemed alert and prosperous and keen for the daily hours of evening entertainment. A crowd