الفصل الفصل 3 · 第3章

Fiddlers errant find that traveling with a 'cello is almost as good--and

almost as bad--as traveling with a child. It helps you, for example, in

cultivating friendly relations with fellow passengers. Suppose there is

a broken wheel, or the engineer is waiting for Number 26 to pass, or you

are stalled for three days in a blizzard,--what more jolly than to

undress your 'cello and play each of those present the tune he would

most like to hear, and lead the congregational singing of 'Dixie,'

'Tipperary,' 'Drink to me only,' and 'Home, Sweet Home'? A fiddle may

even make tenable one of those railway junctions which Stevenson cursed

as the nadir of intrinsic uninterestingness, and which Mr. Clayton

Hamilton praised with such _brio_.

But this is only the bright side. In some ways traveling with a 'cello

is as uncomfortable as traveling, not only with a baby, but with a

donkey. Unless indeed you have an instrument with a convenient hinged

door in the back so that you may pack it full of pyjamas, collars,

brushes, MSS, and so forth, thus dispensing with a bag; or unless you

can calk up its _f_ holes and use the instrument as a canoe on occasion,

a 'cello is about as inconvenient a traveling companion as the corpse in

R.L.S.'s tale, which would insist on getting into the wrong box.

Some idea of the awkwardness of taking the 'cello along in a sleeping

car may be gathered from its nicknames. It is called the 'bull-fiddle.'

It is called the 'dog-house.' But, unlike either bulls or kennels, it

cannot safely be forwarded by freight or express. The formula for

Pullman travel with a 'cello is as follows: First ascertain whether the

conductor will let you aboard with the instrument. If not, try the next

train. When successful, fee the porter heavily at sight, thus softening

his heart so that he will assign the only spare upper birth to your

baby. And warn him in impressive tones that the instrument is priceless,

and on no account to touch it. You need not fear thieves. Sooner than

steal a 'cello, the light-fingered would button his coat over a baby

white elephant and let it tusk his vitals.

I have cause to remember my first and only holiday trip with the

Princeton Glee, Mandolin, and Banjo Clubs. My function being to play

solos and to assist the Mandolin Club, I demanded for the 'cello an

upper berth in the special car. But I was overwhelmed with howls of

derision and assurances that I was a very fresh soph indeed. The first

night, my instrument reposed in some mysterious recess under a leaky

cooler, where all too much water flowed under its bridge before the

dawn. The second night it was compressed into a strait and narrow closet

with brushes and brooms, whence it emerged with a hollow chest, a stoop,

a consumptive quality of voice, and the malady known as _compressio

pontis_. Thereafter it occupied the same upper with me. Twice I overlaid

it, with well-nigh fatal consequences.

Short-distance travel with a 'cello is not much more agreeable. In

trolleys you have to hold it more delicately than any babe, and be ready

to give a straight-arm to any one who lurches in your direction, and to

raise it from the floor every time you jolt over cross-tracks or run

over pedestrians, for fear of jarring the delicate adjustment of the

sound-post. As for a holiday crush down town, the best way to negotiate

it with a 'cello is to fix the sharp end-pin in place, and then, holding

the instrument at charge like a bayonet, impale those who seem most

likely to break its ribs.

After my full share of such experiences, I learned that if you are a

fiddler errant it is better to leave your instrument at home and live on

the country, as it were, trusting to the fact that you can beg, borrow,

or rent some kind of fiddle and of chamber music almost anywhere, if you

know how to go about it.