Page:H. D. Traill - From Cairo to the Soudan Frontier.djvu/143

Rh "Yes; that is all there is to it," he continued. "Just for about two hundred and twenty-seven years you, owing solely to an injury, were a musical prodigy, while I, simply because I hadn't so much the matter with me, have never been able to sing a note."

"All art is morbid," murmured Tama, sadly, yet with a touch of complacency. "Genius is a kind of disease."

"And you," said his brother contemptuously, "could be proud of such a gift as that! Why, I would as soon plume myself on the performance of the Arab who swarms up your leg for a piastre and hides himself between your thighs to beat a tom-tom."

"Fool!" cried the Northern Colossus angrily; "Don't you see that I owe that very indignity to the fact that I can no longer make music of my own?"

"Well, and suppose you could do so once more, what, in these days, would be the consequence? Why, simply this: That there