“Why, Mister, we have been watching the cathedral from our windows for years.  We can see the workmen away up in the air as they finish one part and then another part.  I can count the Apostles on the roof.  You begin with James the Less and keep straight on around until you come out at Simon.  Big Jim and Pete are in the middle of the row.”  He laughed.

“Surely you are not going to speak of an apostle as Pete!  Do you think that is showing proper respect to an apostle?”

“But he was Pete when he was little.  He wasn’t an apostle then and didn’t have any respect.”

“And you mustn’t call an apostle Big Jim!  It sounds dreadful!”

“Then why did he try to call himself James the Greater?  That sounds dreadful too.  As far as size is concerned he is no bigger than the others:  they are all nine and a half feet.  The Archangel Gabriel on the roof, he’s nine and a half.  Everybody standing around on the outside of the roof is nine and a half.  If Gabriel had been turned a little to one side, he would blow his trumpet straight over our flat.  He didn’t blow anywhere one night, for a big wind came up behind him and blew him down and he blew his trumpet at the gutter.  But he didn’t stay down,” boasted the lad.

Throughout his talk he was making it clear that the cathedral was a neighborhood affair; that its haps and mishaps possessed for him the flesh and blood interest of a living person.  Love takes mental possession of its object and by virtue of his affection the cathedral had become his companion.

“You seem rather interested in the cathedral.  Very much interested,” remarked the man, strengthening his statement and with increased attention.

“Why, of course, Mister.  I’ve been passing there nearly every day since I’ve been selling papers on the avenue.  Sometimes I stop and watch the masons.  When I went with Granny to the art school this morning, she told me to go home that way.  I have just come from there.  They are building another one of the chapels now, and the men are up on the scaffolding.  They carried more rock up than they needed and they would walk to the edge and throw big pieces of it down with a smash.  The old house they are using for the choir school is just under there.  Sometimes when the class is practising, I listen from the outside.  If they sing high, I sing high; if they sing low, I sing low.  Why, Mister, I can sing up to—­”

He broke off abruptly.  He had been pouring-out all kinds of confidences to his new-found friend.  Now he hesitated.  The boldness of his nature deserted him.  The deadly preparedness failed.  A shy appealing look came into his eyes as he asked his next question—­a grave question indeed: 

“Mister, do you love music?”

“Do I love music?” echoed the startled musician, pierced by the spear-like sincerity of the question, which seemed to go clean through him and his knowledge and to point back to childhood’s springs of feeling.  “Do I love music?  Yes, some music, I hope.  Some kinds of music, I hope.”