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Harmony stood on her chair and looked at the trunks. The Big Soprano was calling down the hall. "Scatch," she was shouting briskly, "where is my hairbrush?" A wail from Scatch from behind a closed door. "I packed it, Heaven knows where! Do you need it really? Haven't you got a comb?" "As soon as I get something on I'm coming to shake you. Half the teeth are out of my comb.
Harmony found the little hoard under her pillow that night when, having seen Scatch and the Big Soprano off at the station, she had come back alone to the apartment on the Siebensternstrasse. The trunks were gone now. Only the concerto score still lay on the piano, where little Scatchett, mentally on the dock at New York with Henry's arms about her, had forgotten it.
Outside in the garden the trees creaked and bent before the wind, and the heavy barred gate, left open by the last comer, a piano student named Scatchett and dubbed "Scatch" the gate slammed to and fro monotonously, giving now and then just enough pause for a hope that it had latched itself, a hope that was always destroyed by the next gust. One candle burned in the salon.
I don't believe you packed it. Look under the bed." Silence for a moment, while Scatch obeyed for the next moment. "Here it is," she called joyously. "And here are Harmony's bedroom slippers. Oh, Harry, I found your slippers!" The girl got down off the chair and went to the door. "Thanks, dear," she said. "I'm coming in a minute."
It revealed nothing but a cigarette, on which she pounced. Still squatting, she lighted the cigarette in the candle flame and sat solemnly puffing it. "The first for a week," she said. "Pull out the wardrobe, Scatch; there may be another relic of my prosperous days." But little Scatchett was not interested in Austrian cigarettes with a government monopoly and gilt tips.
Some excellent brandy was served round immediately, according to the custom of the Highlands, where a dram is generally taken every day. They call it a scatch. On a side-board was placed for us, who had come off the sea, a substantial dinner, and a variety of wines. Then we had coffee and tea. I observed in the room several elegantly bound books and other marks of improved life.
You Scatch are the thrue rid-tape of society." "Never mind, Colly!" interposed Blount; "there's no time to listen to Terry's badinage. We're all too sleepy for jesting: tell us what you've got in your mind?" "All of ye do as you see me, and I'll be your bail, ye'll sleep sound till the dawn o' the day. Goodnight!"
"And mad!" grumbled his wife. "All the day coal, coal to heat; and at night the windows open! Karl the milkboy has seen it." And now the little colony was breaking up. The Big Soprano was going back to her church, grand opera having found no place for her. Scatch was returning to be married, her heart full, indeed, of music, but her head much occupied with the trousseau in her trunks.
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