. and here, in fact, we
are. My blessings, then, on the golden tongue of the manager.

Now there is something very charming in a proper modesty about
one's attainments, but it is necessary that the attainments should
be generally recognized first. It was admirable in STEPHENSON to
have said (as I am sure he did), when they congratulated him on
his first steam-engine, "Tut-tut, it's nothing;" but he could
only say this so long as the others were in a position to offer
the congratulations. In order to place you in that position I
must let you know how extraordinarily well I played the pianola.
I brought to my interpretation of different Ops an _elan_, a
_verve_, a _je ne sais quoi_--and several other French words--which
were the astonishment of all who listened to me. But chiefly I
was famous for my playing of one piece: "The Charge of the Uhlans,"
by KARL BOHM. Others may have seen Venice by moonlight, or heard
the Vicar's daughter recite _Little Jim_, but the favoured few
who have been present when BOHM and I were collaborating are the
ones who have really lived. Indeed, even the coldest professional
critic would have spoken of it as "a noteworthy rendition."

"The Charge of the Uhlans." If you came to see me, you had to hear it.
As arranged for the pianola, it was marked to be played throughout at
a lightning pace and with the loudest pedal on. So one would play it
if one wished to annoy the man in the flat below; but a true musician
has, I take it, a higher aim. I disregarded the "FF.'s" and the other
sign-posts on the way, and gave it my own interpretation. As played by
me, "The Charge of the Uhlans" became a whole battle scene. Indeed, it
was necessary, before I began, that I should turn to my audience and
describe the scene to them--in the manner, but not in the words, of a
Queen's Hall programme:--

"Er--first of all you hear the cavalry galloping past, and then
there's a short hymn before action while they form up, and then comes
the charge, and then there's a slow bit while they--er--pick up the
wounded, and then they trot slowly back again. And if you listen
carefully to the last bit you'll actually hear the horses limping."

Something like that I would say; and it might happen that an
insufferable guest (who never got asked again) would object that the
hymn part was unusual in real warfare.

"They sang it in this piece anyhow," I would say stiffly, and turn my
back on him and begin.

But the war put a