ted journeys to the stair-head,
to see if Schilsky were not coming. The latter was almost an hour late
by now, and jests, bald and witty, were made at his expense. Some one
offered to take a bet that he had fallen asleep and forgotten the
appointment, and at this, one of the girls on the bed, a handsome
creature with bold, prominent eyes, related an anecdote to her
neighbours, concerning Schilsky's powers of sleep. All three exploded
with laughter. In a growing desire to be asked to play, Boehmer had for
some time hung about the piano, and was now just about to drop, as if
by accident, upon the stool, when the cry of: "No Bach!" was
raised--Bach was Boehmer's specialty--and re-echoed, and he retired red
and discomfited to his Place in a corner of the room, where his
companion, a statuesque little English widow, made biting observations
on the company's behaviour. The general rowdyism was at its height,
when some one had the happy idea that Krafft should sing them his
newest song. At this, there was a unanimous shriek of approval, and
several hands dragged Krafft to the piano. But himself the wildest of
them all, he needed no forcing. Flinging himself down on the seat, he
preluded wildly in imitation of Rubinstein. His hearers sat with their
mouths open, a fixed smile on their faces, laughter ready in their
throats, and only Madeleine was coolly contemptuous.

"Tom-fool!" she said in a low voice.

Krafft was confidently expected to burst into one of those songs for
which he was renowned. Few of his friends were able to sing them, and
no one but himself could both sing and play them simultaneously: they
were a monstrous, standing joke. Instead of this, however, he turned,
winked at his audience, and began a slow, melancholy ditty, with a
recurring refrain. He was not allowed to finish the first verse; a howl
of disapproval went up; his hearers hooted, jeered and stamped.

"Sick cats!"

"Damn your 'WENIG SONNE!'"--this was the refrain.

"Put your head in a bag!"

"Pity he drinks!"

"Give us one of the rousers--the rou ... sers!"

Krafft himself laughed unbridledly. "DAS ICH SPRICHT!"--he announced.
"In C sharp major."

There was a hush of anticipation, in which Dove, stopping his BRETZEL
half-way to his mouth, was heard to say in his tone of measured
surprise: "C sharp major! Why, that is----"

The rest was drowned in the wild chromatic passages that Krafft sent up
and down the piano with his right hand, while