Coffee and Repartee | Page 7

trying to display Wagner
with two hands and one foot is irritating to a musician with a trained
eye."
[Illustration: "'WEREN'T YOUR EARS LONG ENOUGH?'"]
"I wish the Doctor would come down," said Mrs. Smithers, anxiously.
"Yes," put in the School-master; "there seems to be madness in our
midst."
"Well, what can you expect of a Cuban, anyhow?" queried the Idiot.
"The Cuban, like the Spaniard or the Italian or the African, hasn't the
vigor which is necessary for the proper comprehension and rendering
of Wagner's music. He is by nature slow and indolent. If it were easier
for a Spaniard to hop than to walk, he'd hop, and rest his other leg. I've
known Italians whose diet was entirely confined to liquids, because
they were too tired to masticate solids. It is the ease with which it can
be absorbed that makes macaroni the favorite dish of the Italians, and

the fondness of all Latin races for wines is entirely due, I think, to the
fact that wine can be swallowed without chewing. This indolence
affects also their language. The Italian and the Spaniard speak the
language that comes easy--that is soft and dreamy; while the Germans
and Russians, stronger, more energetic, indulge in a speech that even to
us, who are people of an average amount of energy, is sometimes
appalling in the severity of the strain it puts upon the tongue. So, while
I do not wonder that your Cuban pianist showed woful defects in his
use of the pedals, I do wonder that, even with his surprising agility, he
had sufficient energy to manipulate the keys to the satisfaction of so
competent a witness as yourself."
"It was too bad; but we made up for it later," asserted the other. "There
was a young girl there who gave us some of Mendelssohn's Songs
without Words. Her expression was simply perfect. I wouldn't have
missed it for all the world; and now that I think of it, in a few days I
can let you see for yourself how splendid it was. We persuaded her to
encore the songs in the dark, and we got a flash-light photograph of two
of them."
"Oh! then it was not on the piano-forte she gave them?" said the Idiot.
"Oh no; all labial," returned the genial gentleman.
Here Mr. Whitechoker began to look concerned, and whispered
something to the School-master, who replied that there were enough
others present to cope with the two parties to the conversation in case
of a violent outbreak.
"I'd be very glad to see the photographs," replied the Idiot. "Can't I
secure copies of them for my collection? You know I have the
complete rendering of 'Home, Sweet Home' in kodak views, as sung by
Patti. They are simply wonderful, and they prove what has repeatedly
been said by critics, that, in the matter of expression, the superior of
Patti has never been seen."
"I'll try to get them for you, though I doubt it can be done. The artist is
a very shy young girl, and does not care to have her efforts given too

great a publicity until she is ready to go into music a little more deeply.
She is going to read the 'Moonlight Sonata' to us at our next concert.
You'd better come. I'm told her gestures bring out the composer's
meaning in a manner never as yet equalled."
[Illustration: "'THE CORKS POPPED TO SOME PURPOSE LAST
NIGHT'"]
"I'll be there; thank you," returned the Idiot. "And the next time those
fellows at the club are down for a pool tournament I want you to come
up and hear them play. It was extraordinary last night to hear the balls
dropping one by one--click, click, click--as regularly as a metronome,
into the pockets. One of the finest shots, I am sorry to say, I missed."
"How did it happen?" asked the Bibliomaniac. "Weren't your ears long
enough?"
"It was a kiss shot, and I couldn't hear it," returned the Idiot.
"I think you men are crazy," said the School-master, unable to contain
himself any longer.
"So?" observed the Idiot, calmly. "And how do we show our insanity?"
"Seeing concerts and hearing games of pool."
"I take exception to your ruling," returned the Imbiber. "As my friend
the Idiot has frequently remarked, you have the peculiarity of a great
many men in your profession, who think because they never happened
to see or do or hear things as other people do, they may not be seen,
done, or heard at all. I saw the concert I attended last night. Our
musical club has rooms next to a hospital, and we have to give silent
concerts for fear of disturbing the patients; but we are all musicians of
sufficient education to understand by a