"There is something important for you to know," Janin proceeded.
"I lied to you about your voice—I, once a musician of the orchestra at the Opéra Comique. I meant to be cunning and take you round to the fairs, where we would make money; have you sing truck for people who know nothing. I let you sing to-day, in the rain, for a dollar—while I, Janin, fiddled.
"I am a voyou; there is nothing in English low enough. The thought of it has been eating at me like a rat." The disembodied words stopped, the old man strangled and coughed; then continued gasping: "Attention! You have a supreme barytone, a miracle! I heard all the great voices for twenty years, and know.
"At times there is a voice with perfect pitch, a true art and range; not many—they are cold. At times there is a singer with great heart, sympathy . . . mostly too sweet.
"But once, maybe, in fifty, sixty years, both are together. You are that—I make you amends."
The rain pounded fantastically on the roof a few inches above Harry Baggs' head and the water seeped coldly through his battered shoes; but, in the violent rebirth of the vague glow he had lost a short while before, he gave no heed to his bodily discomfort. "A supreme barytone!" The walls of the hut, the hollow, dissolved before the sudden light of hope that enveloped him; all the dim dreams, the unformulated aspirations on which subconsciously his spirit had subsisted, returned.
"Can you be sure?" he demanded uncertainly.
"Absolutely! You are an artist, and life has wrung
