sm.
Shortly after this, Paganini's health gave way completely at Naples, and
the landlord of the hotel where he was stopping got the impression that
his sickness was infectious. In the most brutal manner he turned the
sick musician into the street. Fortunately, at this moment a violoncello
player, Ciandelli, who knew Paga-nini well, was passing by, and came to
the rescue, and his anger was so great, when he saw what had happened
to the great violinist, that he belabored the barbarous landlord
unmercifully with a stick, and conveyed the invalid to a comfortable
lodging where he was carefully attended to. Some time subsequently
Paganini had an opportunity of repaying this kindness, for he gave
Ciandelli some valuable instruction, which enabled him in the course of
a few years to become transformed from a very indifferent performer into
an artist of considerable eminence.

At the age of thirty-six Paganini again found himself at Milan, and
there organized a society of musical amateurs, called "Gli Orfei." He
conducted several of their concerts. But either the love of a roving
life or the necessity of wandering in order to fill his exchequer kept
him constantly on the move; and, though during these travels he is said
to have met with many extraordinary adventures, very little reliance can
be placed upon the accounts that have come down to us, the more so
when we consider that Paga-nini's mode of life was, as we shall see
presently, become by this time extremely sober. It was not until he
was forty-four years old that he finally quitted Italy to make himself
better known in foreign countries. He had been encouraged to visit
Vienna by Prince Metternich, who had heard and admired his playing at
Rome in 1817, and had repeatedly made plans to visit Germany, but his
health had been so wretched as to prevent his departure from his native
country. But a sojourn in the balmy climate of Sicily for a few months
had done him so much good that in 1828 he put his long-deferred
plans into execution. The first concert in March of that year made an
unparalleled sensation. He gave a great number of concerts in Vienna,
among them several for the poor. A fever seized all classes of society.
The shop windows were crowded with goods _a la Paganini_; a good stroke
at billiards was called _un coup a la Paganini_; dishes Avere named
after him; his portrait was enameled on snuff-boxes, and the Viennese
dandies carried his bust on the head of their w