no
playing?"

"The devil!" cried Mychowski, jumping up, and meeting the gaze of one of
the six original Chopin pupils. "No, not the devil," said the other;
"but Chopin. Surely you could not have been playing the F minor Ballade
so marvellously and so early in the day? Now, Chopin always asserted
that the F minor Ballade was for the dusk--"

"No," interrupted Mychowski, "it was not I; it was only Daniel, my
valet, and my pupil. The lazy scamp! If I catch him at the piano instead
of at his work I'll break every bone in his body." Mychowski's eyes were
evil.

"But I assure you, cher monsieur, this was no servant, no pupil; this
sounded as if the master had come back." "You once said that of me,"
returned the pianist moodily, and as he got up, his face ugly with
passion, he reiterated:

"I tell you it was Daniel Chopin. But I'll answer for his silence after
I've finished with him."

Mychowski hurried home....

THE WEGSTAFFES GIVE A MUSICALE

I had promised Mrs. Wegstaffe and so there was no escape; not that my
word was as good as my bond--in the matter of invitations it was
not--but I liked Edith Wegstaffe, who was pretty, even if she did murder
Bach. Hence the secret of my acceptance of Mrs. Wegstaffe's rather
frigid inquiry as to whether I was engaged for the fourteenth. I am a
bachelor, and next to cats, hate music heartily. Almost any other form
of art appeals to my aestheticism, which must feed upon form, color,
substance, but not upon impalpabilities. Silly sound waves, that are
said to possess color, form, rhythm--in fact, all attributes of the
plastic arts. "Pooh! What nonsense," I cried on the evening of the
fourteenth, as I cursed a wretched collar that would not be coerced....
When I reached the Wegstaffe mansion I found my progress retarded by
half a hundred guests, who fought, but politely, mind you, for
precedence. At last, rumpled and red, I reached the men's dressing room,
and the first person I encountered was Tompkins, Percy Tompkins, a man I
hated for his cocksure manner of speech and know-it-all style on the
subject of music. Often had he crushed my callow musical knowledge by an
apt phrase, and thinking well of myself--at least Miss Edith says I
do--I disliked Tompkins heartily. "Hello!" with a perceptible raising of
his eyebrows, "what are you doing here?" "The same as yourself," I
tartly answered, for he was not l'ami de la maison any more than I, and
I didn't purpose being sat upon,