handled by some recognised authority on voice production such as Barraclough
and being able to read music into the bargain, command its own price where
baritones were ten a penny and procure for its fortunate possessor in the near
future an entrée into fashionable houses in the best residential quarters of
financial magnates in a large way of business and titled people where, with
his university degree of B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing
to all the more influence the good impression he would infallibly score a
distinct success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the
purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended to, so as to
the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a youthful tyro in
society’s sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a little thing like that
could militate against you. It was in fact only a matter of months and he
could easily foresee him participating in their musical and artistic conversaziones
during the festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight
flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies
out for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record,
in fact, without giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if
he cared to, could easily have... Added to which of course, would be the
pecuniar y emolument by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand
with his tuition fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy
lucre he need necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for
any lengthy space of time but a step in the required direction it was,
beyond yea or nay, and both monetarily and mentally it contained no
reflection on his dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly
handy to be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little
helped. Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original
music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly have a great
vogue, as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin’s musical world after
the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a confiding public
by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their genus omne. Yes, beyond a shadow
of a doubt, he could, with all the cards in his hand and he had a capital opening
to make a name for himself and win a high place in the city’s esteem where
he could command a stiff figure and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for
the patrons of the King Street house, given a backer-up, if one were forthcoming
to kick him upstairs, so to speak — a big if, however — with some impetus
of the goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often tripped
up a too much fêted prince of good fellows and it need not detract from the
Page:Ulysses, 1922.djvu/620
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