From six to eight every evening Max Merech underwent a gradual transformation, for six o'clock was the closing hour at Polatkin, Scheikowitz & Company's establishment, while eight marked the advent of the Sarasate Trio at the Cafe Roman, on Delancey Street. Thus, at six, Max Merech was an a.s.sistant cutter; and, indeed, until after he ate his supper he still bore the outward appearance of an a.s.sistant cutter, though inwardly he felt a premonitory glow. After half-past seven, however, he b.u.t.toned on a low, turned-down collar with its concomitant broad Windsor tie, and therewith he a.s.sumed his real character--that of a dilettante.

At the Cafe Roman each evening he specialized on music; but with the spirit of the true dilettante he neglected no one of the rest of the arts, and was ever to be found at the table next to the piano, a warm advocate of the latest movement in painting and literature, as well as an appreciative listener to the ultramodern music discoursed by the Sarasate Trio.

"If that ain't a winner I ain't no judge!" he said to Boris Volkovisk, the pianist, on the evening of the conversation with Elkan set forth above. He referred to a violin sonata of Boris' own composition which the latter and Jacob Rekower, the violinist, had just concluded.

Boris smiled and wiped away the perspiration from his bulging forehead, for the third movement of the sonata, marked in the score _Allegro con fuoco_, had taxed even the technic of its composer.

"A winner of what?" Boris asked--"money? Because supposing a miracle happens that somebody would publish it n.o.body buys it."

Max nodded his head slowly in sympathetic acquiescence.

"But anyhow you ain't so bad off like some composers," he said. "You've anyhow got a good musician to play your stuff for you."

He smiled at Jacob Rekower, who plunged his hands into his trousers pockets and shrugged deprecatingly.

"Sure, I know," Rekower said; "and if we play too much good stuff Marculescu raises the devil with us we should play more popular music."

He spat out the words "popular music" with an emphasis that made a _Tarrok_ player at the next table jump in his seat.

"_Nu_," said the latter as the deal pa.s.sed, "what is the matter with popular music? If it wouldn't be for writing popular music, understand me, many a decent, respectable composer would got to starve!"

He turned his chair round and abandoned the card game the better to air his views on popular music.

"Furthermore," he said, "I know a young feller by the name Milton Ja.s.sy which last year he makes two thousand dollars already from syncopating _Had gadyo_ and calling it the "Wildcat Rag," and this year he is writing the music for a new show and I bet yer the least he makes out of it is five thousand dollars."

"Yow! Five thousand dollars!" Merech exclaimed. "Such people you hear about, but you _oser_ see 'em."

"Don't you?" said the _Tarrok_ player, drawing a cardcase from his breast pocket. "Well, you see one now."

He laid face upward on the table a card which read:

+============================================+ | | | "THE SONGS YOU ALL SING" | | | | | | MILTON Ja.s.sY | | SIDDONS THEATRE BUILDING | | ROOM 1400 | | | | "STUFF WITH A PUNCH" | | | | LAZY DAISY EDDIE | | WILDCAT RAG ALL ABOARD FOR SLEEPYTOWN | | | +============================================+

For a brief interval Volkovisk, Rekower, and Merech regarded Ja.s.sy's card in silence.

"Well," Merech said at last, "what of it?"

Ja.s.sy shrugged and waved his hand significantly.

"Nothing of it," he said, "only your friend there is knocking popular music; and though I admit that I didn't got to go to the _Wiener_ conservatory so as I could write popular music exactly, y'understand, still I could write sonatas and trios and quartets and even concerti and symphonies till I am black in the face already and I couldn't pay my laundry bill even."

For answer Volkovisk turned to the piano and seized from the pile of music a blue-covered volume. It was the violin sonata of Richard Strauss, and handing the violin part to Rekower he seated himself on the stool. Then with a premonitory nod to Rekower he struck the opening chords, and for more than ten minutes Ja.s.sy and Merech sat motionless until the first movement was finished.

"When Strauss wrote that he could _oser_ pay his laundry bill either,"

Volkovisk said, rising from the stool. He sat down wearily at the table and lit a cigarette.

"So you see," he began, "Richard Strauss----"

"Richard Strauss nothing!" cried an angry voice at his elbow. "If you want to practise, practise at home. I pay you here to play for my customers, not for yourselves, Volkovisk; and once and for all I am telling you you should cut out this nonsense and _spiel_ a little music once in a while."

It was the proprietor, Marculescu, who spoke, and Volkovisk immediately seated himself at the piano. This time he took from the pile of music three small sheets, one of which he placed on the reading desk and the other on Rekower's violin stand. After handing the other sheet to the 'cellist he plunged into a furious rendition of "Wildcat Rag."

In the front part of the cafe a group of men and women, whose clothes and manners proclaimed them to be slummers from the upper West Side, broke into noisy applause as the vulgar composition came to an end, and in the midst of their shouting and stamping Ja.s.sy rose trembling from his seat. He slunk between tables to the door, while Volkovisk began a repet.i.tion of the number, and it was not until he had turned the corner of the street and the melody had ceased to sound in his ears that he slackened his pace. When he did so, however, a friendly hand fell on his shoulder and he turned to find Max Merech close behind him.

"_Nu_, Mr. Ja.s.sy," Max said, "you shouldn't be so broke up because you couldn't write so good as Richard Strauss."

Ja.s.sy stood still and looked Max squarely in the eye.

"That's just the point," he said in hollow tones. "Might I could if I tried; but I am such an _Epikouros_ that I don't want to try. I would sooner make money out of rubbish than be an artist like Volkovisk."

Max shrugged and elevated his eyebrows.

"A man must got to live," he said as he seized Ja.s.sy's arm and began gently to propel him back to the Cafe Roman.

"Sure, I know," Ja.s.sy said; "but living ain't all having good clothes to wear and good food to eat. Living for an artist like Volkovisk is composing music worthy of an artist. _Aber_ what do I do, Mister----"

"Merech," Max said.

"What do I do, Mr. Merech?" Ja.s.sy continued. "I am all the time throwing away my art in the streets with this rotten stuff I am composing."

"Well, I tell you," Max said after they had reentered the cafe and had seated themselves at a table remote from the piano, "composing music is like manufacturing garments, Mr. Ja.s.sy. Some one must got to cater to the popular-price trade and only a few manufacturers gets to the point where they make up a highgrade line for the exclusive retailers. Ain't it?"

Ja.s.sy nodded as the waiter brought the cups of coffee.

"Now you take me, for instance," Max continued. "Once I worked by B.

Gans, which I a.s.sure you, Mr. Ja.s.sy, it was a pleasure to handle the goods in that place. What an elegant line of silks and embroidery they got it there! Believe me, Mr. Ja.s.sy, every day I went to work there like I would be going to a wedding already, such a beautiful goods they made it! _Aber_ now I am working by a popular-price concern, Mr. Ja.s.sy, which, you could take it from me, the colors them people puts together in one garment gives me the indigestion already!"

Again Ja.s.sy nodded sympathetically.

"And why did I make a change?" Max went on. "Because them people pays me seven dollars a week more as B. Gans, Mr. Ja.s.sy; and though art is art, understand me, seven dollars a week ain't to be coughed at neither."

For a few minutes Ja.s.sy sipped his coffee in silence.

"That's all right, too," he said; "but with garments you could make just so much money manufacturing a highgrade line as you could if you are making a popular-price line."

Max nodded sapiently.

"I give you right there," he agreed, "and that's because the manufacturer of the highgrade line does business in the same way as the popular-price concern. _Aber_ you take the composer of highgrade music and all he does is compose. He's too proud to poosh it, Mr. Ja.s.sy; whereas the feller what composes popular music he's just the same like the feller what manufacturers a popular-price line of garments--he not only manufacturers his line but he pooshes it till he gets a market for it."

"There ain't no market for a highcla.s.s line of music," Ja.s.sy said hopelessly.

"Why ain't there?" Max demanded. "Did you ever try to market a symphony?

Did Volkovisk ever try to get anybody with money interested in his stuff? No, sirree, sir! All that feller does is to play it to a lot of _Schnorrers_ like me, which no matter how much we like his work we couldn't help him none. Now you take your own case, for instance. You told us a few minutes ago you are writing some music for a new show.

Now, if you wouldn't mind my asking, who is putting in the capital for that show?"

"Well," Ja.s.sy replied, "a feller called Benson is putting it in and part of the capital is from his own money and the rest he borrows."