r; but only by passed grand masters of the art of
pianoforte-playing. Still undaunted, I insisted on entering my name
amongst those who would compete at the forthcoming public examination. I
was, as I said before, very young, very inexperienced, and I was alone,
with just enough money to keep me for one year.

I lived in a fourth-story garret in a little alley--you couldn't call it
a street--just off the exterior boulevard. Whether it was the Clichy or
the Batignolles doesn't matter very much now. How I lived was another
affair--and also an object lesson for the young fellows who go abroad
nowadays equipped with money, with clothes, with everything except
humility. Judging from my weekly expenses in my native town, I supposed
that Paris could not be very much higher in its living. So I took with
me $600 in gold, which, partially an inheritance, partially saved and
borrowed, was to last me two years. How I expected to get home was one
of those things that I dared not reflect upon. Sufficient for the day
are the finger exercises thereof! I paid $8 a month--about 40
francs--for my lodgings. Heavens--what a room! It was so small that I
undressed and dressed in the hall, always dark, for the reason that my
bed, bureau, trunk, and upright piano quite crowded me out of the
apartment. I could lie in bed and by reaching out my hands touch the
keyboard of the little rattletrap of an instrument. But it was a piano,
after all, and at it I could weave my musical dreams.

I forgot to tell you that my eating and drinking did not cut important
figures in my scheme of living. I had made up my mind early in my career
that tobacco and beer were for millionaires. Coffee was the grand
consoler, and with coffee, soup, bread, I managed to get through my
work. I ate at a cafe frequented by cabmen, and for ten cents I was
given soup, the meat of the soup--tasteless stuff--bread, and a potato.
What more did an ambitious young man want? There were many not so well
off as I. I took two meals a day, the first, coffee and milk with a
roll. Then I starved until dark for my soup meat. I recall wintry days
when I stayed in bed to keep warm, for I never could indulge in the
luxury of fire, and with a pillow on my stomach I did my harmony
lessons. The pillow, need I add, was to suppress the latent pangs of
juvenile appetite. My one sorrow was my washing. With my means, fresh
linen was out of the question. A flannel shirt, one; socks at intervals,
and a