who told Von Barwig he had tried everywhere but
could get no more for it, since there was a doubt as to its genuineness.

Von Barwig took the money, which was further decreased by a twenty per
cent. commission. The man told him he was very lucky to get it; and
perhaps he was.

This amount tided Von Barwig over for several months, during which time
he secured several pupils and seemed for a time to be in a fair way to
make a living. Be it understood that he was no longer the Anton Von
Barwig who lived in Leipsic ten years before. Gone was the fire of his
genius; dead was his ambition. His soul was not in his work--the man
was alive, but the artist was dead.

Chapter Eight

And so the years passed away; one, two, three, Von Barwig did not keep
count now. One year was just like another, equally profitless, equally
monotonous; the struggle for existence just as keen, the interest in
this or that pupil just as superficial, the interest in obtaining
pupils perhaps the greatest of all. But the drudgery of teaching the
young mind to distinguish between crotchet and quaver, and mark time,
mark time, wore Von Barwig out.

"Good God," he would think, "will it ever come that time shall cease to
be, and I shall cease to mark it?" The old man often smiled as he
contrasted the Leipsic days with the present. Then he had but to raise
his arm and from a hundred instruments and five hundred voices would
vibrate sounds of beauty, of colour, of joy, in harmony and rhythm.
Now when he beat time some dirty-fingered little pupil would tinkle out
sounds that nearly drove him mad with their monotony. Von Barwig had
been compelled to sell his good piano and rent one on the installment
plan; a cheap tin-pan affair, with a sounding board that sent forth the
most metallic sort of music. This went on until Von Barwig hated the
very sound of a musical instrument. He must have suffered terribly,
but he made no mention of it. At the close of his day's work he would
shut his piano wearily, put away his violin and go to Galazatti's,
where he would meet his friends, Fico and Pinac. He did not complain,
but they did. Fico was playing the mandolin on a Coney Island boat;
Pinac was doing nothing, but sat in Galazatti's all day. When they
complained to Von Barwig of their ill luck, their inability to obtain
good engagements because they could not get into the Musical Union, Von
Barwig did not spare them. He told them plainly that th