hoven? I particularly want
a piano that will play the 'Moonlight' and the 'Waldstein.'"

"You're not thinking of a _pianola_, Sir, are you?"

"No," I replied, "I am not. I have no sympathy with music that looks
like a Gruyere cheese. The music I want my piano to play is the ordinary
printed kind--black-currants and stalks and that sort of thing."

"Well, Sir, you will find that this piano is specially adapted for
playing all kinds of printed music. Music in manuscript may also be
rendered upon it."

"That's one point settled then," I said. "Now, if you will kindly prize
the lid off, I should like to look at the works."

He lifted the lid and propped it up with a short billiard-cue which
fitted into a notch. All danger of sudden decapitation having been
removed, I put my head inside.

"Hallo!" I cried. "What's this harp doing in here? Doesn't it get in the
way?"

"That is not a harp, Sir; that is part of the mechanism--the wires, you
know."

I plucked a few of them, and they gave forth a pleasing sound. So I
plucked some more.

"Yes," I said decidedly, "I like the rigging very much. And now perhaps
you will be good enough to tell me what those two foot-clutches are for,
which I noticed underneath the keyboard. I suppose they are the brake
and the reversing-gear?"

I was wrong. The man expounded their true functions to me. Then I said,
"I should just like to examine it underneath, if you wouldn't mind
turning it on its back."

The fellow told me that it was unnecessary and unusual--that I had seen
all there was to see. This made me suspicious. I was certain he was
trying to conceal some radical defect from me. So I made up my mind to
see for myself. I took off my coat and crawled underneath. As I
suspected, I found two large round holes in the flooring. When I had
finished rubbing my head, I drew the man's attention to them. He was
able to give a more or less reasonable excuse for them. I forget what he
said they were--ventilators, I think.

He concluded by saying that the instrument would be certain to give me
the utmost satisfaction.

"You would not recommend my having a more expensive one?" I asked. "A
Stradivarius, or a Benvenuto Cellini?"

He thought not; so we clinched the deal.

"I think," I said, as I handed him my cheque, "that I should like my
name-plate fixed on it somewhere--say, on one of the end notes that I
shall never use."

But he advised me against this. None of the players handicap