The Fiddler

So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody forever and ever. Intolera

Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism, and rushed out into Broadway, where enthusiastic very recently started, and famous for a capital clown. Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.

"Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what's the matter? Haven't been committing murder? Ain't fly "You have seen it then?" said I, of course referring to the critism.

"Oh yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure you. But here comes Hau

Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I was instantly soothed as I g unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a juvenile, animated cast to it. H gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as fo

"Come, Standard," he gleefully cried to my friend, "are you not going to the circus? The clown is i and circus over, we'll take a nice stew and punch at Taylor's."

The sterling content, good humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere expression of this most singu mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation from so unmistakably kind and honest a hea

During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the celebrated clown. Hau struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing called happiness. The jokes of the clo bonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed to attest his grateful applause. At any hit mo if his rare pleasure was shared. In a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the sl honest and natural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine good-nature, that the and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of Greece.

But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and as much as I admired his air, yet that desperate mood in departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But from these relapses I would rouse my eagerly interested and all-applauding human faces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas; the v mused I, has caused all this? Why, the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.

Then I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which Cleothemes the Argive vi myself, did I now leap into the ring there, and repeat that identical passage, nay, enact the whole they applaud the clown? No! They would hoot me, and call me doting or mad. Then what does thi both; but indubitably the first. But why wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a buffo people vociferously applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper, what foolish thing had

Again my eye swept the circus, and fell on the ruddy radiance of the countenance of Hautboy. Bu intolerant pride was rebuked. And yet Hautboy dreamed not what magic reproof to a soul like min dart of the censure, his eye twinkled, his hand waved, his voice was lifted in jubilant delight at an

Circus over, we went to Taylor's. Among crowds of others, we sat down to our stews and punches me. Though greatly subdued from its former hilarity, his face still shone with gladness. But added serene expression of leisurely, deep good sense. Good sense and good humor in him joined hand

Standard and himfor I said little or nothingI was more and more struck with the excellent judg topics Hautboy seemed intuitively to hit the exact line between enthusiasm and apathy. It was pla was, yet he did not theoretically espouse its bright side nor its dark side. Rejecting all solutions, h did not superficially gainsay; what was glad in it he ! did not cynically slur; and all which was to h was plain, thenso it seemed at that moment, at leastthat his extraordinary cheerfulness did n Suddenly remembering an engagement, he took up his hat, bowed pleasantly, and left us.

"Well, Helmstone," said Standard, inaudibly drumming on the slab, "what do you think of your new The two last words tingled with a peculiar and novel significance.

"New acquaintance indeed," echoed I. "Standard, I owe you a thousand thanks for introducing me needed the optical sight of such a man to believe in the possibility of his existence." "You rather like him, then," said Standard, with ironical dryness. "I hugely love and admire him, Standard. I wish I were Hautboy." "Ah? That's a pity, now. There's only one Hautboy in the world." This last remark set me to pondering again, and somehow it revived my dark mood.

"His wonderful cheerfulness, I suppose," said I, sneering with spleen, "originates not less in a felic sense is apparent; but great good sense may exist without sublime endowments. Nay, I take it, in absence of those. Much more, cheerfulness. Unpossessed of genius, Hautboy is eternally blessed "Ah? You would not think him an extraordinary genius, then?" "Genius? What! such a short, fat fellow a genius! Genius, like Cassius, is lank."

"Ah? But could you not fancy that Hautboy might formerly have had genius, but luckily getting rid

"For a genius to get rid of his genius is as impossible as for a man in the galloping consumption to "Ah? You speak very decidedly."

"Yes, Standard," cried I, increasing in spleen, "your cheery Hautboy, after all, is no pattern, no les because circumscribed; passions docile, because they are feeble; a temper hilarious, because he reasonable example to a handy fellow like you, or an ambitious dreamer like me? Nothing tempts restrain. By constitution he is exempted from all moral harm. Could ambition but prick him; had h different man would your Hautboy be. Acquiescent and calm from the cradle to the grave, he obv "Ah?" "Why do you say Ah to me so strangely whenever I speak?" "Did you ever hear of Master Betty?"

"The great English prodigy, who long ago ousted the Siddons and the Kembles from Drury Lane, a

"The same," said Standard, once more inaudibly drumming on the slab.

I looked at him perplexed. He seemed to be holding the master-key of our theme in mysterious re puzzle me only the more.

"What under heaven can Master Betty, the great genius and prodigy, and English boy twelve yea Hautboy, an American of forty?"

"Oh, nothing in the least. I don't imagine that they ever saw each other. Besides, Master Betty mu "Then why cross the ocean, and rifle the grave to drag his remains into this living discussion?"

"Absent-mindedness, I suppose. I humbly beg pardon. Proceed with your observations on Hautbo happy and fat for thatah? You think him no pattern for men in general? affording no lesson of va presumption rebuked?all of which three amount to much the same thing. You admire his cheerf Hautboy, how sad that your very cheerfulness should, by a by-blow, bring you despite!" "I don't say I scorn him; you are unjust. I simply declare that he is no pattern for me."

A sudden noise at my side attracted my ear. Turning, I saw Hautboy again, who very blithely rese "I was behind time with my engagement," said Hautboy, "so thought I would run back and rejoin to my rooms. It is only a five minutes' walk." "If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will," said Standard. Fiddle! thought I--he's a jiggumbob fiddler, then? No wonder genius declines to measure its pace "I will gladly fiddle you your fill," replied Hautboy to Standard. "Come on."

In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of storehouse, in a lateral street to furniture which seemed to have been obtained, piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned house

Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle and, sitting down on a tall ri and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I w style. Sitting there on the old stool, his rusty hat sidways cocked on his head, one foot dangling a discontent, every vestige of peevishness, fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the magica "Something of an Orpheus, ah?" said Standard, archly nudging me beneath the left rib. "And I, the charmed Briun," murmured I.

The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the easy, indifferent Hautbo

When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I earnestly conjured him to tell m

"Why, haven't you seen him? And didn't you yourself lay his whole anatomy open on the marble s Doubtless, your own masterly insight has already put you in possession of all." "You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat you, who is Hautboy?"

"An extraordinary genius, Helmstone," said Standard, with sudden ardor, "who in boyhood draine was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object of wonder to the wisest, been thousands on thousands of the rabble. But to-day he walks Broadway and no man knows him. Wi pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He who has a hundred times been crowned with lau fortune poured showers of gold into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, fro Crammed once with fame, he is now hilarious without it.With genius and without fame, he is happ "His true name?" "Let me whisper it in your ear." "What! Oh, Standard, myself, as a child, have shouted myself hoarse applauding that very name

"I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received," said Standard, now suddenly shiftin

"Not a word of that, for Heaven's sake!" cried I. "If Cicero, traveling in the East, found sympatheti once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine an temple of Fame?"

Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautb