| He was small, but with a thick chest developed in summers spent at the bottom of swimming pools, and he could hold a note longer than anyone in the A Band, much longer, but that was all he could do | Helmholtz had thought of little else |
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| But everybody has to face it, and then go in search of his true self | Plummer never challenged anybody in the C Band or even in the B Band, but stormed the organization at the very top, challenging, as was unfortunately the privilege of all, only members of the A Band |
Helmholtz caught him there, and seized his arm.
20| Helmholtz, forgetting the point at issue and remembering his all-consuming dream | He looked up to find many of the bandsmen contemplating the chair with him, as though they, too, sensed that something great, in a fantastic way, had disappeared, and that life would be a good bit duller on account of it |
|---|---|
| He lit a cigarette, and laughed like a department store Santa Claus at this magnificent stroke of fortune | He paused on the doorsill for one more wistful look at the A Band that would never have a chair for him |
He never tells me anything.
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