oken English, that "piano playing with
the hands suited well enough the pale-blooded law-abiding people of
yesterday, but that the full-pulsing stormy emotions of to-day could
only be adequately expressed by the _elbows_!" Quite _myriads_ of people
made him write, "Your affectionate friend, Ivan Rowdidowsky," in their
autograph-books, till at last he had cramp in the hand and Sir William
Kiddem had to be called in. There were reassuring bulletins telling the
public that they needn't be alarmed about their favourite, as cramp in
the band is _rarely_ fatal and does _not_ affect the elbows, and that,
if M. Rowdidowsky stopped writing in autograph-books for a day or two,
he'd be quite his wonderful self again.

Popsy, Lady Ramsgate, has been _folle de lui_ from the first, and at
Easter she'd a big party for him down at "Popsy's Pleasaunce," her place
in Sussex, and then and there announced that she was engaged to him, and
that after her marriage she would drop the Ramsgate title and be known
by "her Ivan's beautiful Slavonic name!" People were very nice to her
about it and didn't laugh more than they could help, and all went
cheerily, Rowdidowsky in his scarlet velvet playing to them with his
elbows every evening; and then one fatal morning (as novelists say)
Popsy picked up a letter that her Ivan had dropped from his pocket. It
was addressed outside to "M. Rowdidowsky," and this is an extract from
what she read _inside_: "I was at your show at Emperor's Hall the other
day and thought I should have split my skin at the way the silly jossers
all round me were carrying on, and at the thought that it was my pal,
good old Bert Smith of Camberwell, perched up on the platform in red
velvet togs pounding away on the old piano with his elbows like a good
'un. I put my hands over my face to prevent myself from bursting out,
and the woman next to me shoved a silver bottle under my nose and
gurgled into my ear, 'You've an artist-soul! I felt just as you do when
I first heard this divine Rowdidowsky!' The silly geeser! Go it, old
son! More power to your _elbows_! And don't forget, when you've made
your pile, that your old pal, Joe, was part-author of the idea and
helped you to work it out!"

Popsy, poor old dear, is having the Gurra-Gurra treatment for nervous
collapse. Lord and Lady Ramsgate are enormously relieved at the turn
things have taken; and their boy Pegwell said to me yesterday, "I'm
jolly glad it's all off! Fancy how _deco