“It has, old thing, it has!”

“Is it or is it not a ball of fire?”

“It has many of the earmarks of a sound egg,” admitted Archie.  “Of course—­”

“Of course, it wants singing.”

“Just what I was going to suggest.”

“It wants a woman to sing it.  A woman who could reach out for that last high note and teach it to take a joke.  The whole refrain is working up to that.  You need Tetrazzini or someone who would just pick that note off the roof and hold it till the janitor came round to lock up the building for the night.”

“I must buy a copy for my wife.  Where can I get it?”

“You can’t get it!  It isn’t published.  Writing music’s the darndest job!” Wilson Hymack snorted fiercely.  It was plain that the man was pouring out the pent-up emotion of many days.  “You write the biggest thing in years and you go round trying to get someone to sing it, and they say you’re a genius and then shove the song away in a drawer and forget about it.”

Archie lit another cigarette.

“I’m a jolly old child in these matters, old lad,” he said, “but why don’t you take it direct to a publisher?  As a matter of fact, if it would be any use to you, I was foregathering with a music-publisher only the other day.  A bird of the name of Blumenthal.  He was lunching in here with a pal of mine, and we got tolerably matey.  Why not let me tool you round to the office to-morrow and play it to him?”

“No, thanks.  Much obliged, but I’m not going to play that melody in any publisher’s office with his hired gang of Tin-Pan Alley composers listening at the keyhole and taking notes.  I’ll have to wait till I can find somebody to sing it.  Well, I must be going along.  Glad to have seen you again.  Sooner or later I’ll take you to hear that high note sung by someone in a way that’ll make your spine tie itself in knots round the back of your neck.”

“I’ll count the days,” said Archie, courteously.  “Pip-pip!”

Hardly had the door closed behind the composer when it opened again to admit Lucille.

“Hallo, light of my soul!” said Archie, rising and embracing his wife.  “Where have you been all the afternoon?  I was expecting you this many an hour past.  I wanted you to meet—­”

“I’ve been having tea with a girl down in Greenwich Village.  I couldn’t get away before.  Who was that who went out just as I came along the passage?”

“Chappie of the name of Hymack.  I met him in France.  A composer and what not.”

“We seem to have been moving in artistic circles this afternoon.  The girl I went to see is a singer.  At least, she wants to sing, but gets no encouragement.”

“Precisely the same with my bird.  He wants to get his music sung but nobody’ll sing it.  But I didn’t know you knew any Greenwich Village warblers, sunshine of my home.  How did you meet this female?”

Lucille sat down and gazed forlornly at him with her big grey eyes.  She was registering something, but Archie could not gather what it was.