extensions and wide stretches.
To learn to be able to strike ten notes is quite enough.

6. Before you perform a piece, play a few suitable chords, and a few
appropriate passages or scales up and down (but play no stupid trash,
such as I have heard from many _virtuosos_), in order to try whether the
condition of the instrument presents any unexpected difficulties. Try
carefully also the unavoidable pedal. A creaking, rattling, grating
pedal is a frightful annoyance; I wonder if the piano of "the future" is
to suffer from this also. Chopin's Funeral March, with obligato
accompaniment of a squeaking pedal sentiment, even although the
omissions and mistakes in the bass do not occur,--alas! who can describe
the effect of this melancholy march?

7. I have written a special article on the manner of sitting at the
piano, and I will refer you once more to that.

8. Use no mechanical aids in practising, not even the dumb key-board;
although, with very careful use, that is not without value. Strength
will come with time; do not try to hurry nature. The table is the best
"dumb key-board," as I have already explained. The "hand-guide" is also
unnecessary: its value is compensated by its disadvantages.

9. Do not let your hearers crowd too near while you are playing. Do not
play the same piece _da capo_. You may be justified in breaking off in
the midst of a piece, if there is loud and continuous talking, &c.

I hope you will give me the honor of your company again at my soirees: I
am no writer of comedies, but I can tell you a great deal that is
interesting and amusing which I have myself experienced.

CHAPTER XIV.

EXTRAVAGANCES IN SINGING AND PIANO-PLAYING.

_(An Evening Party at Mr. Gold's.)_

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MR. GOLD, _the banker (fond of music)._
MRS. GOLD _(sings, and is an invalid.)_
MR. SILVER, _bookkeeper (formerly a singer with Strauss)._
MR. PIOUS, _a friend of the family (a musical impostor, and a hypocrite
generally)._
MR. FORTE, _a foreign piano virtuoso (of weak nerves)._
DOMINIE, _a piano-teacher._
EMMA, _his daughter._

(_Mrs. Gold has just been singing in the modern Italian manner;
suddenly alternating exaggerated high and low tones, given in a
jerking manner, with inaudible _pianissimo_ in the throat, and
quavering on every note, with many ornaments, and always a quarter
of a tone too flat. She sang all the four verses of "Fondly I Think
of Thee" by Kr