he had been when he landed.

He looked again at the piano, hesitated, then went down the three steps to the restaurant's door, pushed it open and went in. It was his good fortune that Wan Ti, owner of The Avatar was receiving his guests in person at the moment.

"I'll play you a concert for a meal," said Cornel, gesturing toward the piano.

Wan Ti's dark eyes swept over him, taking in the battered coveralls, the earnest face, the untrimmed blond hair, the slender hands. Wan Ti's yellow countenance remained bland.

"I have a piano player," said Wan Ti.

Cornel laughed, with a note of desperation in his tone.

"Let me play one selection," he urged. "If you want to stop me then, you can kick me out."

What Wan Ti thought could not be gauged from his expression, but he had not built his clientele against fierce competition by turning his face away from the unusual. He inclined his head slightly, and waved Cornel to the piano.

Cornel sat down at the keyboard, brushed his hair back from his eyes, and flexed his long fingers. Thrusting the tantalizing aroma of food to the back of his mind, he played.

The murmur of conversation in The Avatar faltered and died as the fervid melody of Beethoven's Sonata Appassionata filled the air. It was unusual music to people accustomed to hearing the more modern compositions of Schonberg, Harris and Westine. The comparison of Cornel's inspired touch to the mechanical renditions of Wan Ti's regular piano player was noticeable even to those who were unfamiliar with music.

When the final movements of the allegro ma non troppo faded, Cornel sat back and looked toward Wan Ti. The proprietor cocked an ear toward the rare applause, smiled and nodded slightly. Exultantly, Cornel swung into Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu and followed it, not pausing, with Liszt's Waldesrauschen and Schubert's Serenade.

The applause was just as enthusiastic, but by now the hum of voices and the click of eating utensils had begun to rise again. Frowning slightly, Cornel hunched his shoulders and began a composition the most musical of his audience had never heard before.

Like the molten notes of the nightingale, the music floated and throbbed above the diners, almost a physical thing. The people in 

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