Page:The gold brick (1910).djvu/307

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finding a soft minor chord. The old man closed his eyes, slid farther down in his plush chair, and just as he was prepared to listen, she suddenly stopped in the provoking way amateur musicians cultivate, to say:

"But, father, that's such an old song, wouldn't you rather I'd sing the Intermezzo from Cavalerie?"

Malachi opened his eyes with a start and sat bolt upright.

"Naw," he said, "none o' thim fur'n op'res—phat's the use of yer goin' to th' convint all those years?" But his voice quickly softened. "Do ye go on now, Nora, darlin', there's a good gur-rl."

And so she sang, and the alderman sank in his chair, with his big arms in their shirt-sleeves thrown over his head, closed his eyes again, stretched out his stockinged feet. The smoke from his cigar ascended to the chandelier, and now and then when he remembered the words of a line, he hummed them behind closed lips, in unison with his daughter. When the song was done Nora whirled around, clasped her hands in a school-girl's ecstasy and said:

"Oh, father, that song makes me homesick—homesick for a place I never saw. You won't run