The Old Flute-Player

The Old Flute-Player, by

Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey This eBook is for the use of
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Title: The Old Flute-Player A Romance of To-day
Author: Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
Illustrator: Clarence Rowe and J. Knowles Hare, Jr.
Release Date: February 23, 2006 [EBook #17841]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: Anna Frontispiece]
The Old Flute-Player

A Romance of To-day

BY
EDWARD MARSHALL
AND
CHARLES T. DAZEY

Illustrations by
CLARENCE ROWE
Frontispiece by
J. KNOWLES HARE, JR.
G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK

Copyright, 1910, By
G.W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY

ILLUSTRATIONS
Anna Frontispiece
Almost instantly the Italian bully was sprawling in the scuppers and
Vanderlyn had raised the old man to his feet
It was as if the "sweet birds singing in his heart" had risen and were
perched, all twittering and cooing, chirping, carolling upon his lips

"She is not guilty! No; it is I--I--I!"

The Old Flute-Player
CHAPTER I
Herr Kreutzer was a mystery to his companions in the little London
orchestra in which he played, and he kept his daughter, Anna, in such
severe seclusion that they little more than knew that she existed and
was beautiful. Not far from Soho Square, they lived, in that sort of
British lodgings in which room-rental carries with it the privilege of
using one hole in the basement-kitchen range on which to cook food
thrice a day. To the people of the lodging-house the two were nearly as
complete a mystery as to the people of the orchestra.
"Hi sye," the landlady confided to the slavey, M'riar, "that Dutch toff in
the hattic, 'e's somethink in disguise!"
"My hye," exclaimed the slavey, who adored Herr Kreutzer and
intensely worshiped Anna. She jumped back dramatically. "Not
bombs!"
The neighborhood was used to linking thoughts of bombs with thoughts
of foreigners whose hair hung low upon their shoulders as, beyond a
doubt, Herr Kreutzer's did, so M'riar's guess was not absurd. England
offers refuge to the nightmares of all Europe's political indigestion.
Soho offers most of them their lodgings. For years M'riar had been
vainly waiting, with delicious fear, for that terrific moment when she
should discover a loaded bit of gas-pipe in some bed as she yanked off
the covers. Now real drama seemed, at last, to be coming into her dull
life. Somethink in disguise--Miss Anna's father! She hoped it was not
bombs, for bombs might mean trouble for him. She resolved that
should she see a bobby trying to get up into the attic she would pour a
kettleful of boiling water on him.
The landlady relieved her, somewhat, by her comment of next moment.

"'E's too mild fer bombs by 'arf," she said, with rich disgust. "Likelier
'e's drove away, than that 'e's one as wishes 'e could drive. Hi sye, fer
guess, that 'e's got titles, an' sech like, but's bean cashiered." (The
landlady had had a son disgraced as officer of yeomanry and used a
military term which, to her mind, meant exiled.) "'E's got that look
abaht 'im of 'avin' bean fired hout."
"No fault o' 'is, then," said the slavey quickly, voicing her earnest
partisanship without a moment's wait. She even looked at her employer
with a belligerent eye.
"'E doos pye reg'lar," the landlady admitted with an air which showed
that she had more than once had tenants who did not.
"Judgin' from 'is manners an' kind 'eart 'e might be princes," said the
slavey, drawing in her breath exactly as she would if sucking a ripe
orange.
"An' 'is darter might be princesses!" exclaimed the landlady with a sniff.
Quite plainly she did not approve of the seclusion in which Herr
Kreutzer kept his daughter. "Five years 'ave them two lived 'ere in this
'ere 'ouse, an' not five times 'as that there man let that there 'aughty miss
stir hout halone!"
"'Ow 'eavingly!" sighed the maid, who never, in her life, had been
cared for, at all, by anyone.
"'Ow fiddlesticks!" the landlady replied. "You'd think she might be
waxworks, liable to melt if sun-shone-on! Fer me, Hi says that them as
is too fine for Soho houghtn't to be livin' 'ere. That's w'at Hi
says--halthough 'e pyes as reg'lar as clockworks."
"Clockworks fawther with a waxworks darter!" cried the slavey, who
had a taste for humor of a kind. "Th' one 'ud stop if t'other melted.
That's sure."
"'E hidolizes 'er