an find it when you want it, and
the confusion is delightfully increased by your constantly rushing off
to buy a new _partitur_ when you can't find the old one; so you have
three or four of each."

"This is all to show off what he considers his own good qualities; a
certain slow, methodical plodding and a good memory, which are natural
gifts, but which he boasts of as if they were acquired virtues. He binds
his music because he is a pedant and a prig, and can't help it; a bad
fellow to get on with. Now, _mein bester_, for the 'Fruhling.'"

"But the Fraeulein ought to have it explained," expostulated Helfen,
laughing. "Every one has not the misfortune to be so well acquainted
with you as I am. He has rather insane fancies sometimes," he added,
turning to me, "without rhyme or reason that I am aware, and he chooses
to assert that Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, or the chief motive of it,
occurred to him on a spring day, when the master was, for a time, quite
charmed from his bitter humor, and had, perhaps, some one by his side
who put his heart in tune with the spring songs of the birds, the green
of the grass, the scent of the flowers. So he calls it the 'Fruhling
Symphonie,' and will persist in playing it as such. I call the idea
rather far-fetched, but then that is nothing unusual with him."

"Having said your remarkably stupid say, which Miss Wedderburn has far
too much sense to heed in the least, suppose you allow us to begin,"
said Courvoisier, giving the other a push toward his violin.

But we were destined to have yet another coadjutor in the shape of Karl
Linders, who at that moment strolled in, and was hailed by his friends
with jubilation.

"Come and help! Your 'cello will give just the mellowness that is
wanted," said Eugen.

"I must go and get it then," said Karl, looking at me.

Eugen, with an indescribable expression as he intercepted the glance,
introduced us to one another. Karl and Friedhelm Helfen went off to
another part of the Tonhalle to fetch Karl's violoncello, and we were
left alone again.

"Perhaps I ought not to have introduced him. I forgot 'Lohengrin,'" said
Eugen.

"You know that you did not," said I, in a low voice.

"No," he answered, almost in the same tone. "It was thinking of that
which led me to introduce poor old Karl to you. I thought, perhaps, that
you would accept it as a sign--will you?"

"A sign of what?"

"That I feel myself to have been in the wrong throughout--and f