before the concert I really trembled.

"In my bedroom I faced the mirror and saw my secret peering out at me. I
knew that if I failed it would kill my parents, who, gambler-like, were
staking their very existence on my success. As the night wore white I
grew more nervous, and at dawn, not being able to endure the strain a
moment more, I crept out of doors and went to a public house and began
drinking to settle my nerves."

"I told you it was whiskey," blurted out Billy.

"No, brandy," said Mr. Wilkins, looking into his empty glass, "now it's
whiskey. Yes; thank you very much. Well, to proceed.

"I drank all day, but being young I did not feel it particularly. I went
home, ran my fingers over the piano, got into a bath and dressed for the
concert. At eight o'clock the carriage came, and at eight forty-five,
with one more drink in me, I walked out on the platform as bold as you
please, and despite the size of the audience, the glare of the lights
and the air, charged with human electricity, I felt rather at ease. The
orchestra went sailing into the long _tutti_ of the F minor Concerto of
Chopin, and Richter, I could feel, was in good spirits. My cue came; I
took it, struck out and came down the piano in the introductory
unisons--a divine beginning, isn't it?--and my tone seemed rich and
virile. I played the first theme, and all went well until the next
interlude for the orchestra; I looked about me confidently, feeling
quite like a virtuoso, and soon spied my parents, when suddenly my knees
began to tremble, trembled so that the damper pedal vibrated. Then my
eyes blurred and I missed my cue and felt Richter's great spectacles
burning into the side of my head like two fierce suns. I scrambled, got
my place, lost it, rambled and was roused to my position by the short
rapping of the conductor's stick on his desk. The band stopped, and
Herr Richter spoke gruffly to me:

"'Begin again.'

"In a sick, dazed way I put my fingers on the keys, but they were drunk;
the cursed brandy had just begun to work, and a minute later, my head
reeling, I staggered through the orchestra, lurched against a
contrabassist, fell down and was shoved out of sight.

"I lay in the artists' room perfectly content, and even enjoyed the
pinched chalky face of my father as he stooped over me.

"'My God, the boy's drunk,' he cried, and big Richter nodded his head
quite philosophically, 'Ja, er ist ganz besoffen,' and left us to go to
the audienc