Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/133

 “So you’ve got the date at Aeolian!” he remarked, and everyone in the next room became aware of the fact. “Good! Soprano! Fine! Got a program?”

Mrs. Loamford was about to answer—and didn’t. She didn’t quite approve of so much energy devoted to the discussion of matters which rested in a higher plane. She could have held forth continuously to Maxwell; she was taken aback by Harper. Dorothy, however, was attracted by the frankness of Harper’s manner. There was something paternal in his ruggedness. She felt that her suggestions would be received sympathetically.

“I was planning a program of four groups,” she said. “Old Italian, Old French, lieder—in German, possibly— and a group of modern songs.”

“That’s a good, safe program for a start,” commented Harper. “Show ’em what you've got. That’s the idea. Later on you can specialize and hand ’em an evening of Bessarabian jazz hymns. But better begin with old man Mozart or old Oratorio—you know, Handel. Show ’em you can sing that stuff. Old French is good, too. Shows class. That’s what you want: Class.”

“And the lieder?” inquired Dorothy. “Had I better sing those in English?”

“Hell, no, little lady!” exploded Harper enthusiastically. “You can sing ’em in Kayser Bill’s own dirty Dutch now. When you sing in Muscatine, Iowa, Little Rock, Arkansas, or Sacramento, California, you’d better do ’em in English, But in little old New York—sing ’em in German!”

Mrs. Loamford became more and more astonished at the vocabulary and the manner of Hamilton Harper. This was a curious person to put in charge of a concert. Was Mr. Maxwell trying to fob them off by turning them over to this loud-mouthed, profane individual?