"Come along," George would urge, his banjo under his arm, "we shall be late."
"Don't wait for me," Finch would say over his shoulder, and would be happier when the banjo, the first and second mandolins, were gone and he was left alone with the flute and his family.
Finch now saw a new kind of life, the life of shopgirls and their beaux seeking pleasure at night in cheap restaurants. On the mornings when the orchestra had an engagement to play that evening, he awoke with a start, excited in all his being. The way had always been paved the night before with his family. Poor Mrs. St. John wanted George to spend the night at her house and would like to have Finch also. There was never any difficulty. Finch found it was the easiest thing in the world to lead a double life. Aunt Augusta would send a box of little cakes or a pot of marmalade to Mrs. St. John. His aunt, though she looked at him coldly, her head drawn back with her air of offence, had a tender spot in her heart for the boy. To his amazement, he had won the prize canary in the raffle, and had smuggled the cage to her room, swathed in paper, a present for her on her seventy-sixth birthday. It had come as an inspiration to him that the day on which he had received it was her birthday. She had told him that his winning the lottery was a good omen for his future. The two were drawn together. He often visited her room to see the canary, and they gloated over the prize together. She soon grew to love it extravagantly. Now she must always keep the door of her room shut tightly for fear old Mrs. Whiteoak should hear it sing. Grandmother would never have tolerated any other bird in the house with Boney. Then there was the fear of Sasha, Ernest's yellow Persian cat, who had taken to making her toilette on Augusta's doormat. Ernest also grew fond of the canary. He too would go to his sister's room to hear it sing, and they would gaze enraptured at the little throbbing body while it dipped its yellow head from side to side, warbling first to one long-faced listener, then to the other.
These days Finch lived in a kind of haze. He felt life
