Harper's Weekly/The Symphony

by Albert Kinross

 

The Symphony

By Albert Kinross

“WHEN I come into my money,” Steadman used to say, “I'm going to retire from business and compose a symphony. I'll take a year over it; I'll take two years. I won't do anything else till I've got it over.” And then he would whistle some kind of a tune and return to the entries in his ledger. He was the bookkeeper; Jarvis looked after our correspondence; while I was the firm's buyer.

Such was my leading recollection of Steadman, if I except his long legs and his nose for cheap and tasty luncheons. He sampled every eating-house within a mile, and when he made a discovery he was always willing to share it. “There's a new place just opened,” he used to say, “quantity plus quality;” or, “Barker's is getting worse and worser; soon they'll be as bad as Thorp's.” His passions were music and good food. He found a seat high up in the gallery at most of the great concerts, and once or twice he inveigled me into the place beside him. It was thus that I became acquainted with Eroica, with Schubert, and the glorious Ninth. One day he would inherit money, it was understood; and then for a while he would let the whole world slide and devote himself to a single symphony. It was a strange ambition for a two-pound clerk. In all our experience we had never met its fellow. But Steadman had made up his mind. “Only one—not more than one,” he would confide to us. “There's no cash in it—not so much as a brass ha' penny; yet if I do that, I can die happy.”

There was a man on the Wool Exchange who had published a book of poems, and, I once met a corset manufacturer who had filled in his leisure hours with writing a novel; and of course there are other business men who have scribbled or painted. But Steadman and his symphony and his wholesale retirement always struck me as something rather unique; and when I removed to other duties in a far-away land, I left him, tuneful and firmly fixed as ever upon his one ambition. It was a good ten years before we met again. Early one morning I had taken my seat in the train that goes to Dover. I had made myself comfortable and opened my newspaper. The carriage was empty; I had its space and cushions to myself. The guard whistled, and we began to move. At the last moment, at the last possible moment, the door opened and a passenger was thrust in. It was Steadman.

He did not recognize me; but I have an uncommon memory for faces. He was blown and full of his near shave. “Just did it,” he said, speaking without ceremony. “Just did it.” He looked so well and prosperous that I at once recalled his inheritance and the better times of which he had so often spoken. The one thing led to the other.

“How's the symphony, Steadman?” I asked; and the question took him by surprise.

He sat up. He puzzled over me, found me, and at last held out a hand. He spoke my name and said how glad he was to see me.

“You're not bookkeeping now?” I said.

“No,” he answered. “I came into some money—quite a modest fortune. I gave up my job.”

“And composed a symphony?'

He looked at me, a little wondering; and then: “Oh, yes,” he laughed; “I remember that as well. But do you remember little Bunner?”

I tried hard; I tried my hardest.

“We lunched there once,” he prompted me.

“We lunched all over the shop.”

“An excellent place,” he pursued, “kept by an excellent family. The wife cooked, the husband managed, the sons waited at table, and the daughters served and washed up. It was like going to someone's house and being a guest. Plain; but the best of its kind, and cheap.”

Dimly the place came back to me. “Bunner's, was it?” I answered.

“It was such an original scheme,” he ran on. “No hired assistance—just a partnership—no outsiders. I used to go there regularly, and I said to Bunner, 'If you had half-a-dozen places like this one, run on these lines, you'd make a fortune.' He thought of it himself, but he hadn't got further than the thinking. He hadn't the capital and he didn't know a capitalist. Well, I was tired of being a bookkeeper, as you remember, and it seemed my chance. For I was coming into a bit of money, sooner or later—an aunt of mine. She died, and I went in with the Bunners. We've two dozen eating-houses run on the original lines. We pick a good man with a capable and willing family. They divide the profits and give us twenty per cent. It's been a wonderful success.”

“And, the symphony—the symphony you were going to compose?” For that prospective masterpiece still haunted me.

“I hadn't come into my money then,” he answered, laughing over it. “Perhaps—later on—when I've sold out.”