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Updated: June 19, 2025
"He feels so bad with himself that we have lost our engagement through him that he cannot come over it," said Fico in answer to Pinac's query as to what was the matter with Von Barwig.
The question is, what shall we have for dinner, not who shall pay for it?" And then without awaiting a reply, he opened the door and called for Jenny. Pinac and Fico looked at each other. It was evident to them that Miss Husted had exaggerated Von Barwig's poverty, so their spirits rose at once. "Jenny! We take dinner here. Get me the menu, Poons.
Pinac, Fico and Poons, huddled together around the fire bundled up in their overcoats, had to place their feet on the stove to keep them warm or blow on their fingers and walk about the room to keep their blood in circulation. At this time Pinac and Fico were playing at Galazatti's for their dinners, being unable to obtain more profitable engagements, and Poons was playing in an uptown theatre.
It was a disease, for it kept poor a good soul, who otherwise might have been, if not well-to-do, at least fairly prosperous. Jenny, young as she was, knew all this. She knew that Fico, or Signor Tagliafico, was a struggling musician and not an artist in any sense of the word. She knew he was an ordinary Italian fiddler who preferred to fiddle for food rather than to work manually for it.
The noise brought Miss Husted out into the hall in less time than it takes to state the fact. "What is it, Thurza?" she asked, showing evidence of being startled out of a doze by the noise. "Third floor front forgot his key, Miss Houston," said the girl sulkily, as Fico trudged upstairs to his room.
Pinac thought she referred in some way to Poons, and tried to catch his eye and motion to him to get out of the room, but that lovelorn youth was mooning out of the window, so Pinac nodded sympathetically at Miss Husted and said, "Oui, oui. Yes, oh, yes!" Fico looked very grave and muttered: "Too bad; too bad!"
As she did so she burst into a flood of tears, and giving way completely to her feelings, she knelt by the little trunk and fairly sobbed as if her heart would break. When Pinac, Fico and Poons returned to their respective rooms they found her kneeling by the trunk. When they spoke to her she pretended to be singing a worn-out ditty of years gone by.
It was Fico playing a waltz, "The Artist's Life," on the mandolin, while Poons extemporised a pizzicato accompaniment on the 'cello. "Ah, my boys, they are in," he said to himself. "I hope they didn't wait breakfast for me." "Professor, professor!" came the cheery voice of Miss Husted, as she greeted him warmly. "I'm so glad to see you!" The music stopped.
Again the savant sprang to his feet, wildly gesticulating as he strode to and fro, striving to thus work off some of the intense excitement which had taken full possession. And words fell rapidly from his lips the while, only a portion of which need be placed upon record in this connection, however. "A fico for the paltry lost cities of musty tradition, now!
It was not until she had slapped his face several times, and told him she was to be his aunt and not his sweetheart, that he released her, and even then he insisted on holding her hand and telling her how much he loved Jenny. So much noise did the boy make that Pinac and Fico rushed out of their room to find out what was the matter.
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