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Sid Hahn was seated at the piano, a squat, gnomelike little figure, with those big ears, and that plump face, and those soft eyes–the kindest eyes in the world. He did not stop playing as Wallie appeared. He glanced up at him, ever so briefly, but kindly, too, and went on playing the thing with one short forefinger, excruciatingly. Wallie waited. He had heard somewhere that Hahn would sit at the piano thus, for hours, the tears running down his cheeks because of the beauty of the music he could remember but not reproduce; and partly because of his own inability to reproduce it.

The stubby little forefinger faltered, stopped. He looked up at Wallie.

“God, I wish I could play!”

“Helps a lot.”

“You play?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“Oh, most anything I’ve heard once. And some things I kind of make up.”

“Compose, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Play one of those.”

So Wallie Ascher played one of those. Of course you know “Good Night–Pleasant Dreams.” He hadn’t named it then. It wasn’t even published until almost two years later, but that was what he played for Sid Hahn. Since “After The Ball” no popular song has achieved the success of that one. No doubt it was cheap, and no doubt it was sentimental, but so, too, are “The Suwanee River” and “My Old Kentucky Home,” and they’ll be singing those when more classical songs have long been forgotten. As Wallie played it his dark, thin face seemed to gleam and glow in the lamplight.

When he had finished Sid Hahn was silent for a moment. Then, “What’re you going to do with it?”

“With what?”

“With what you’ve got. You know.”

Wallie knew that he did not mean the song he had just played. “I’m going to–I’m going to do a lot with it.”

“Yeh, but how?”

Wallie was looking down at his two lean brown hands on the keys. For a long minute he did not answer. Then: “By thinking about it all the time. And working like hell…. And you’ve got to be selfish … You’ve got to be selfish …”

As Sid Hahn stared at him, as though hypnotized, the Jap appeared in the doorway. Sid Hahn said, “Stay and have dinner with me,” instead of what he had meant to say.

“Oh, I can’t! Thanks. I–” He wanted to terribly, but the thought was too much.

“Better.”

They had dinner together. Even under the influence of Hahn’s encouragement and two glasses of mellow wine whose name he did not know, Wallie did not become fatuous. They talked about music–neither of them knew anything about it, really. Wallie confessed that he used it as an intoxicant and a stimulant.

“That’s it!” cried Hahn, excitedly. “If I could play I’d have done more. More.”

“Why don’t you get one of those piano-players, What-you-call’ems?” Then, immediately, “No, of course not.”

“Nah, that doesn’t do it,” said Hahn, quickly. “That’s like adopting a baby when you can’t have one of your own. It isn’t the same. It isn’t the same. It looks like a baby, and acts like a baby, and sounds like a baby–but it isn’t yours. It isn’t you. That’s it! It isn’t you!”

“Yeh,” agreed Wallie, nodding. So perfectly did they understand each other, this ill-assorted pair.

It was midnight before Wallie left. They had both forgotten about the play manuscript whose delivery had been considered so important. The big room was gracious, quiet, soothing. A fire flickered in the grate. One lamp glowed softly–almost sombrely.

As Wallie rose at last to go he shook himself slightly like one coming out of a trance. He looked slowly about the golden, mellow room. “Gee!”

“Yes, but it isn’t worth it,” said Hahn, “after you’ve got it.”

“That’s what they all say”–grimly–“after they’ve got it.”

The thing that had been born in Sid Hahn’s mind thirty years before was now so plainly stamped on this boy’s face that Hahn was startled into earnestness. “But I tell you, it’s true! It’s true!”

“Maybe. Some day, when I’m living in a place like this, I’ll let you know if you’re right.”