human
Your entrance was most dramatic, Mr. Thayer, for your name was just trembling upon our lips. Miss Dane has been asking us if we knew your accompanist, Mr. Arlt.
gpt
Otto? What about him, Miss Dane?
human
Only good. Miss Gannion was speaking to me about him, last night.
gpt
You know Miss Gannion?
human
Who doesn't?
gpt
That can be interpreted in two senses.
human
Not if you know Miss Gannion. She is of the salt of the earth.
gpt
I am glad to hear you say so. She is the one person in the city to whom I brought an introduction. She was out when I called, so I am still a good deal at sea in regard to her.
human
She is a dear little spinster of fifty, with endless interests and not a hobby to her name, the most downright, practical person I have ever known, and the most helpful to strangers and pilgrims in the city. It is quite incidental that she is uncommonly rich and uncommonly homely. Nobody ever stops to think about either fact.
gpt
And she has heard of Arlt?
human
Yes, she hears of everybody. She has a great talent for putting young men on their feet and teaching them to walk alone. In fact, she is a perfect employment bureau for meritorious youth. Somebody wrote to her that Mr. Arlt has genius and grit, and not a guinea to his name, and she is trying to get him some engagements.
gpt
She asked you to help him?
human
Yes. At least, she spoke about him, and asked me to keep my eyes open and to say a good word for him, when I can. What does he want, Mr. Thayer?
gpt
Whatever he can get.
human
What does he need, then?
gpt
Everything.
human
At least, that is comprehensive, Beatrix, her cousin assured her.
gpt
He may even be starved into eating your chloride of manna.
human
And you have known him for some time, Mr. Thayer?
gpt
Long enough to have no hesitation in vouching for him, both as a man and as an artist.
human
Then why the deuce hasn't the fellow arrived?
gpt
Chiefly because art is long, and we are all too busy to wait for it to display itself. Give him time,
human
Time is money, though. Perhaps a pension would do just as well.
gpt
Arlt is a thoroughly good fellow, one you are safe in introducing anywhere. He is only a boy, barely twenty; but he is one of the most satisfactory pianists I have ever heard. I don't mean I haven't heard better ones; but never one who has been more satisfying to my mood, whatever it is. His technique is not perfect, and he lacks maturity; but he has a trick of making people dissatisfied with other pianists and anxious to hear him play the same programme.
human
And he will accompany?
gpt
Ye-es. Sometimes.
human
I spare your modesty, Mr. Thayer. I think I understand. But really I haven't much influence. If I can help him, though, you can count on my doing it.
gpt
All he needs is a little start. As Miss Van Osdel says, New York is moving too fast to wait for strangers to fall into step with the procession.
human
He is a stranger, then?
gpt
He came over with me. Thayer hesitated.
human
I may as well tell you a bit about him, he went on.
gpt
It can't do any harm, and it may supplement Miss Gannion's story. He is that unhappy being, the youngest son of a younger son, and he has more ancestors than money. His father ran away to escape army service, and forgot to provide for his wife and children. The children died, all but two, Otto and a sister eight years older. He was half through his musical training, when she had a fall that crippled her, and the boy had to give up study and take to teaching. For two years, he fought a losing fight, giving lessons to stolid youngsters, playing at cheap concerts wherever he could get an engagement, and all the time slowly dropping deeper and deeper into debt. One night, he fainted in the middle of the accompaniment to _The Erl-King_, and it looked as if the King had claimed him. There were a couple of Americans in the hall who had been watching him for weeks, and they began to investigate the case. Arlt, it seems, hadn't eaten anything for two days; and, just as he had started for the concert, he had received legal notice that the next day his mother and sister would be turned into the street, because the rent was unpaid.
human
And then?
gpt
Then they took him out to supper,
human
And then?
gpt
Then they found him an engagement that paid a better salary, and they bullied him into accepting a little loan, until the first week's payday came around.
human
That was so good of you!
gpt
I wasn't the only American in Berlin at the time, Miss Dane.
human
No; you said there were two of you. But there is no use in your denying that you were the one who sang _The Erl-King_.
gpt
Circumstantial evidence convicts you, Thayer, Bobby said, coming to the support of his cousin.
human
You sang; you also fed him. Likewise, you brought him to America. Then wherefore deny?
gpt
There's no reason I should deny. I like Arlt, and for weeks I had been trying to get him as accompanist, so I gained by the affair. The other fellow didn't, though. He was no musician; but the case interested him. He not only backed Arlt financially, but he hunted up the mother and sister and did no end of nice things for them, the things that count: rolling chairs and extract of beef and all that stuff. He had nothing to make by the transaction.
human
Were they properly grateful?
gpt
Yes, to the point of enthusiasm. The mother insisted upon doing his mending all the next winter, and the sister embroidered him a pair of huge antimacassars and a smoking-cap. It sounds funny; but it was grim, earnest tragedy mixed with pathos. He did it all with such tact that the poor creatures never half realized how for a fact they never came into the middle of his life at all. Arlt realizes it, though. That is one of the most pathetic phases of the whole situation. By the way, Dane, you know the fellow, I think.
human
I wish I did. Beatrix spoke impetuously.
gpt
Plenty of people will give generously, but not many of them are willing to give humanely.
human
Old Frau Arlt used to call him her _Lieber Sohn_, and fuss over him as if he were in dire need of her motherly care. He took it just as it was given. The two women lived too quietly to have heard of him. Otto never told them the truth; but outside the house his deference made up for the familiarity at home. It has been a pretty story to watch, and it has meant a comfortable life for two half-starved women.
gpt
Who was the man?
human
Lorimer. Sidney Lorimer.