The first thing the boys needed was a place to stay while they were in New York. Luckily, one of their members - Ringo - had actually planned to come here and had a hotel room all ready to stay in. It was only a single room, though, so there was going to be a little difficulty finding a place for everyone to sleep, but the boys weren't going to worry about that yet. The foursome chatted happily all the way to the hotel, and once they'd put their things away, Winston said, "Haven't toi got a guitar, Geo?"
Geo looked unhappy. "Yeah - back in Liverpool."
Winston did not look worried. "We'll just have to get toi a New York guitar, then. Come 'head!" And his band followed him out the door.
The boys wandered about, looking for a place to buy a guitare for Geo. Most of them had some money on them, but not a lot, so buying him a really good, brand-new guitare probably wasn't an option. But they should be able to get him a nice secondhand one. They needed to get him something. It would be cruel to keep Geo without a guitare for any longer.
Winston was chatting to Geo as they walked about what kinds of guitars he liked best, so Paul talked to Ringo about musical instruments. It turned out that while Paul could play trombone, piano, drums, and a number of other instruments if asked, Ringo had never had any interest in playing any instrument other than drums, and had never really tried. "I could do a little piano if they wanted, ou three guitare chords. But it's not the same as drums." He grinned widely as he mentioned his beloved instrument.
Soon the band found a large thrift store which had a lot of different items and might have some musical instruments for sale. The foursome went inside and spent a happy twenty minutes playing with the merchandise on the shelves before the store staff told them if they didn't stop fooling around and actually buy something, they would have to leave. Winston replied with a remark ou two which might have disguised an insult, but the boys did stop, mostly because Geo was calling. "Winston, I think toi should see this."
Winston, followed par Paul and Ringo, came over to look at what Geo had found. It was the only musical instrument in the shop. One that looked very much like a guitar, that might have been mistaken for a guitare par someone who didn't play an instrument. But the four bandmates noticed right away that there were only four strings. It was a bass.
"Well, we could use a basse, bass in our band," Paul said, breaking the silence of everybody staring at the instrument.
"We're not asking Geo to play basse, bass for us!" Winston insisted.
"I don't really want to play bass...." Geo put in quietly.
"Well, it - it does play like a guitar," Paul pointed out. "It could be very melodic if toi tried."
"Good to hear that, James." Winston nodded, and suddenly, handed the basse, bass to him. "You can play basse, bass for us, then."
"What?" That wasn't at all what Paul had meant.... "No, I - I can't play bass...."
"I can't play bass!" Geo pointed out.
"You could play bass," Ringo told Paul, in an encouraging tone. "You were just telling me how toi can play all sorts of things."
"But I didn't mean... I came here to play guitar!" Paul gesticulated wildly with his left hand, not sure how to win this argument with all his bandmates on the other side. "I've already got me guitar!"
Winston shrugged. "Give it to Geo here. Then toi can take the bass."
"Geo can't play my guitar!" protested Paul. "I turned all the strings round specially!"
"You turned the strings round?" Geo looked intrigued. "Why?"
"I couldn't find a left-handed guitare and had to improvise," Paul explained, calming down slightly as he remembered the pleasure of coming up with this idea.
"Clever, that," Winston grinned. "Let's have toi come up with some clever basse, bass lines, too. toi can turn the strings back for Geo and turn round the strings on this basse, bass here."
Paul was running out of protests. Everything he tried, his bandmates turned it against him. "But - but why can't toi play bass?" he appealed to Winston.
Winston gave him his trademark grin, brown eyes twinkling. "Because I'm the bandleader - James."
Paul sighed. Part of him wanted to argue the point, but he could tell there was no arguing with Winston once he brought up his bandleader position. "Fine."
And it was hard for him to stay mad, really, when he saw Geo's smile lighting up his face as he heard he could still be lead guitarist after all, ou when Ringo told him he didn't know much about bass, but he knew Paul would be great at it, ou when Winston set the instrument into his hands and told him to go pay for it, and he got his first good look at the glossy wooden instrument, with its long neck and four thick strings just waiting to be played. His fingers itched to try it out, to see how the notes sounded and make up little melodies, ou whatever people played on basses....
Maybe being asked to change instruments wouldn't be so bad.
"Well, now we can't call ourselves le batteur, batteur and the Guitars," he remarked, as the boys walked back to their hotel.
"Maybe we could be the Thrift boutique Quartet."
"Nah, none of our other instruments are thrift ones. Since we're in New York, how about Liverpool?"
"Since we're from Liverpool, how about New York?"
The boys debated names all the way back to the hotel, but couldn't think of anything they really wanted to use. Oh, well. Today they had arranged their perfect instrument lineup, a lineup even Paul was beginning to be happy with. Tomorrow they could finally begin performing. Names could wait for later.