"I cannot do that, sir; but if I may come now and then--"
"Come whenever you like," said the organist; and so saying he shook
George and his friend by the hand, and hurried from the chapel.
This was the event which of all others brightened George Reader's first
year at college.
Instead of aimless walks, he now stole at every spare moment (without
cutting into his ordinary work) to the organ, and there revelled in
music.
His acquaintance with the college organist increased and developed into
a friendship, of which mutual admiration formed a large element, and one
happy Sunday, a year after his arrival at Cambridge, he received, for
the first time, the much coveted permission to preside at the organ
during a college service, a task of which he acquitted himself so well--
nay, so remarkably well--that not only did he frequently find himself
again in the same position, but his playing came to be a matter of
remark among the musical set of Saint George's.
"Who is the fellow who played to-day?" a man inquired one day of the
organist; "is he a pupil of yours?"
"No. I might be a pupil of his in some things. He's a boy, and, mark
my words, if he goes on as he's begun he'll be heard of some day."
"What's his name, do you know?" inquired the youth.
"I don't even know that, I never-- Here he comes!"
"Introduce me, will you?"
"With pleasure. Allow me to introduce Mr Halliday," said the organist
to George.
Halliday! Wasn't that a familiar name to me? Was it possible? This
fine fellow, then, was no other than Jim Halliday, whom I had last seen
as a boy on the steps of Randlebury, with his chum Charlie Newcome,
waving farewell to Tom Drift.
Ah, how my heart beat at being thus once more brought back into the
light of those happy days by this unexpected meeting!
My master by no means shared my delight at the incident. He had always
shrunk from acquaintanceships among his fellow-collegians. With none,
hitherto, but the organist had he become familiar, and that only by
virtue of an irresistible common interest. His poverty and humble
station forbade him to intrude his fellowship on the clannish gentry of
Saint George's, and certainly his cravings for hard study led him, so
far from considering the exclusion as a hardship, to look upon it as a
mercy, and few things he desired more devoutly than that this
satisfactory state of affairs might continue.
I do not say George was right in this. Sociability is, to a certain
extent, a duty, and one that ought not without the soundest reason to be
shirked. George may have carried his reserve rather too far, but at any
rate you will allow he erred on the right side, if he erred at all, and
carried his purpose through with more honesty and success than poor Tom
Drift had displayed in a very similar situation.
Now, however, his hermitage was in peril of a siege, and he quailed as
he acknowledged the introduction offered him.
"How are you?" said Halliday, with all his own downrightness. "I and a
lot of fellows have liked your playing, and I don't see why I shouldn't
tell you so. How are you?"
"I'm quite well, thank you," faltered George.
"You're a freshman, I suppose?" asked Jim.
"No, I'm in my second year."
"Are you? I thought I knew all the men in the college; but perhaps you
live in the town?"
"No, I live in college."
"Where are your rooms?" asked the astonished Jim.
"In, or rather under, H staircase," replied George. "Perhaps you would
know the place best as the `Mouse-trap.'"
Jim could not resist a whistle of surprise and a rapid scrutiny of his
new acquaintance.
"The `Mouse-trap'! That's an awful hole, isn't it?"
"Yes," said George, his candour coming to his rescue to deliver him from
this cross-examination, "but it's cheap--"
Jim looked as afflicted as if he had been seized with a sudden
toothache.
"What a blundering jackass I am! Please excuse my rudeness; I never
meant to annoy you."
"You have not done so. You are not the sort of man I should mind
knowing I was poor--"
"Of course not; so am I poor; but don't let's talk of that. Will you
come to my rooms?"