"May I?" he exclaimed.

"Certainly, if you like--and if you can," added the other, hesitatingly, as if not sure whether the lad's skill would be equal to his enthusiasm.

George sat down on the bench, and laid his fingers lovingly on the keys.

But he withdrew them before he had sounded a note. "I would rather you did not watch me too closely," he said, nervously, "for I am only a beginner."

"Let us go and sit down stairs," suggested the doctor.

The organist looked still more doubtful than before, and began to repent his offer. However, he retired with the doctor, and made up his mind to be excruciated. They sat down in two of the stalls and waited.

And then George began to play. What he played I cannot tell. It began first in a faint whisper of music which swelled onward into a pure choral melody. Then suddenly the grand old roof trembled with the clash of a martial movement, strong and steady, which carried the listener onward till he was, with the sound, lost in the far distance. Then, in wailing minor numbers the music returned, slowly working itself up into the tumult and fury of a pent-up agony, and finally sweeping all before it in a wild hurricane of bitterness. Then a pause, and then sweetly and in the far distance once more rose the quiet hymn, and after that all was silence.

After the first few notes the organist had uttered a startled e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and drawn the doctor to another seat farther down the nave, where, till all was over, he sat motionless as a statue. But the moment the music had ceased he ran up the stairs with a face full of pleasure and admiration, and actually seized George by the hand.

"You're a genius, sir. That was not at all bad, I can tell you."

A happy smile was all the answer George could give.

"Not at all bad," repeated the organist. "I was telling your friend,"

added he to Dr Wilkins, who had returned more slowly to the organ, "that was not at all bad. He must come here often."

"Nothing, I am sure, would delight him more," said the doctor. "Eh, my boy?"

"Nothing, indeed," said George, "but--"

"But your reading, I suppose."

"Never mind your reading, sir!" exclaimed the organist. "What's that to music? Take my advice, and go in for music."

Poor George! for a moment he felt tempted to abandon all his ambitions and resolutions at the prospect of a career so delightful and congenial.

But he was made of firmer stuff than Tom Drift, and replied,--

"I cannot do that, sir; but if I may come now and then--"

"Come whenever you like," said the organist; and so saying he shook George and his friend by the hand, and hurried from the chapel.

This was the event which of all others brightened George Reader's first year at college.

Instead of aimless walks, he now stole at every spare moment (without cutting into his ordinary work) to the organ, and there revelled in music.

His acquaintance with the college organist increased and developed into a friendship, of which mutual admiration formed a large element, and one happy Sunday, a year after his arrival at Cambridge, he received, for the first time, the much coveted permission to preside at the organ during a college service, a task of which he acquitted himself so well-- nay, so remarkably well--that not only did he frequently find himself again in the same position, but his playing came to be a matter of remark among the musical set of Saint George's.

"Who is the fellow who played to-day?" a man inquired one day of the organist; "is he a pupil of yours?"

"No. I might be a pupil of his in some things. He's a boy, and, mark my words, if he goes on as he's begun he'll be heard of some day."

"What's his name, do you know?" inquired the youth.

"I don't even know that, I never-- Here he comes!"

"Introduce me, will you?"

"With pleasure. Allow me to introduce Mr Halliday," said the organist to George.

Halliday! Wasn't that a familiar name to me? Was it possible? This fine fellow, then, was no other than Jim Halliday, whom I had last seen as a boy on the steps of Randlebury, with his chum Charlie Newcome, waving farewell to Tom Drift.

Ah, how my heart beat at being thus once more brought back into the light of those happy days by this unexpected meeting!

My master by no means shared my delight at the incident. He had always shrunk from acquaintanceships among his fellow-collegians. With none, hitherto, but the organist had he become familiar, and that only by virtue of an irresistible common interest. His poverty and humble station forbade him to intrude his fellowship on the clannish gentry of Saint George's, and certainly his cravings for hard study led him, so far from considering the exclusion as a hardship, to look upon it as a mercy, and few things he desired more devoutly than that this satisfactory state of affairs might continue.

I do not say George was right in this. Sociability is, to a certain extent, a duty, and one that ought not without the soundest reason to be shirked. George may have carried his reserve rather too far, but at any rate you will allow he erred on the right side, if he erred at all, and carried his purpose through with more honesty and success than poor Tom Drift had displayed in a very similar situation.

Now, however, his hermitage was in peril of a siege, and he quailed as he acknowledged the introduction offered him.

"How are you?" said Halliday, with all his own downrightness. "I and a lot of fellows have liked your playing, and I don't see why I shouldn't tell you so. How are you?"

"I'm quite well, thank you," faltered George.

"You're a freshman, I suppose?" asked Jim.

"No, I'm in my second year."

"Are you? I thought I knew all the men in the college; but perhaps you live in the town?"

"No, I live in college."

"Where are your rooms?" asked the astonished Jim.

"In, or rather under, H staircase," replied George. "Perhaps you would know the place best as the `Mouse-trap.'"

Jim could not resist a whistle of surprise and a rapid scrutiny of his new acquaintance.

"The `Mouse-trap'! That's an awful hole, isn't it?"

"Yes," said George, his candour coming to his rescue to deliver him from this cross-examination, "but it's cheap--"

Jim looked as afflicted as if he had been seized with a sudden toothache.

"What a blundering jacka.s.s I am! Please excuse my rudeness; I never meant to annoy you."

"You have not done so. You are not the sort of man I should mind knowing I was poor--"

"Of course not; so am I poor; but don't let's talk of that. Will you come to my rooms?"

George hesitated, and then answered,--

"I'd rather not, please. I'm reading hard, and, besides--"