III-V

The couple grasped avidly at the opportunity
to live with him. The youth had already
evaporated from Rose's countenance; her
minute mouth and constantly lifted eyebrows expressed
an inwardly-gratifying sense of superiority,
an effect strengthened by her thin, affected
speech. Across her narrow brow a fringe of hair
fell which she was continually crimping with an iron
heated in the kitchen stove, permeating the room
with a lingering and villainous odor of burned hair.

William Vibard was a man with a passion --
the accordion. He arrived with the instrument in a
glossy black paper box, produced it at the first opportunity,
and sat by the stove drawing it out to
incredible lengths in the production of still more
incredible sounds. He held one boxlike end, with
its metallic stops, by his left ear, while his right
hand, unfalteringly fixed in the strap of the other
end, operated largely in the region of his stomach.

He had a book of instructions and melodies
printed in highly-simplified and explanatory bars,
which he balanced on his knee while he struggled in
their execution.

[[294]]

p293 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p294w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p295

v?