{"id":"01KG6G84X68REWCEHTMXCDWJWA","cid":"bafkreigidcju5vza5ii36fe6w2isrbufvj2le5vaaxfgjjsdiha2el3cdy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7228,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.153Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","start_line":7152,"text":"‘I will gladly fiddle you your fill,’ replied Hautboy to Standard. ‘Come\r\non.’\r\n\r\nIn a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of\r\nstorehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished\r\nwith all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained,\r\npiece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all\r\nwas charmingly clean and cosy.\r\n\r\nPressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle,\r\nand sitting down on a tall, rickety stool, played away right merrily at\r\n‘Yankee Doodle’ and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully\r\ncare-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by\r\nsomething miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old\r\nstool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling\r\nadrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, every\r\nvestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the\r\nmagical fiddle.\r\n\r\n‘Something of an Orpheus, ah?’ said Standard, archly nudging me beneath\r\nthe left rib.\r\n\r\n‘And I, the charmed Bruin,’ murmured I.\r\n\r\nThe fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the\r\neasy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition.\r\n\r\nWhen, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I\r\nearnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvellous\r\nHautboy was.\r\n\r\n‘Why, haven’t you seen him? And didn’t you yourself lay his whole\r\nanatomy open on the marble slab at Taylor’s. What more can you possibly\r\nlearn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in\r\npossession of all.’\r\n\r\n‘You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat\r\nyou, who is Hautboy?’\r\n\r\n‘An extraordinary genius, Helmstone,’ said Standard, with sudden ardour,\r\n‘who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from city\r\nto city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object\r\nof wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the\r\nopen homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But to-day he walks\r\nBroadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the elbow of the\r\nhurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He\r\nwho has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you\r\nsee, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap,\r\nas showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from house to house\r\nhe hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once with fame, he is\r\nnow hilarious without it. _With_ genius and _without_ fame, he is\r\nhappier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever.’\r\n\r\n‘His true name?’\r\n\r\n‘Let me whisper it in your ear.’\r\n\r\n‘What! Oh, Standard, myself, as a child, have shouted myself hoarse\r\napplauding that very name in the theatre.’\r\n\r\n‘I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received,’ said\r\nStandard, now suddenly shifting the subject.\r\n\r\n‘Not a word of that, for Heaven’s sake!’ cried I. ‘If Cicero, travelling\r\nin the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the\r\narid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as\r\nnothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the\r\nshattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?’\r\n\r\nNext day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take\r\nregular lessons of Hautboy.\r\n\r\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6G6Q6157DSWZ3Z0MBGJV7M","peer_type":"article","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6FXSCNX5F3D880P3YP3PKR","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG2T49K0H5GDRB0G4YDTPG8H","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6G84X66RND7BZMVTBHJ82X","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T03:48:16.934Z","ts":"2026-01-30T03:48:28.872Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}