er an amusing character.

My mother and I were traveling in a private compartment, with the door
open on the main corridor of the train. A tall, handsome, bearded
gentleman had passed that door no less than a dozen times. Finally he
passed just at the moment when my mother wished the train porter to
change German gold into Russian money. The porter did not have the
change. Here was the chance of the bearded man's lifetime. He projected
himself into the compartment, he made the change, he introduced himself
gracefully, and calmly announced that he knew me all the time as "_Die
Farrar aus Berlin_," the singer, and he wished to do everything in his
power to make us comfortable during our stay in Warsaw. He turned out to
be Count Ischki P----, a very wealthy nobleman with a most romantic
temperament and also with the persistence of fly-paper.

We could not disengage ourselves from his courtesy on the train, and he
became doubly irksome when he bombarded my apartments in the Hotel
Bristol,--the magnificent hostelry, by the way, which Paderewski built
and owns in Warsaw,--sending me flowers, sweetmeats, candies, and even
attempting to send me jewelry. The poor Count Ischki wanted me to look
with favor upon his suit. Never, outside the pages of a novel, have I
met any one quite so ardent, in so many languages.

The climax came one afternoon when I was reading in my apartment.

There was a knock at the door; it opened instantly, and in came a
procession of bell-boys--each carrying flowers, enormous boxes of candy
or tributes of some kind. All these were carefully deposited at my feet
without a word. Then, as the boys withdrew, the Count Ischki himself,
faultlessly dressed, entered and threw himself upon his knees before me
in the midst of his offerings. It was a perfect setting for the stage. I
had all I could do to keep serious as the Polish count poured out the
story of his mad love, and declared that, unless I would marry him, he
would quickly die the death of a madman.

Gently I motioned for him to arise and depart. "I fear I am only a cold,
heartless, American girl," I replied. "I love only my art, and I shall
never marry anybody."

The night I left Warsaw the poor Count Ischki was at the station to see
me off, and, though I felt sorry for him, I was happy at escaping from
so trying an emotional character. For almost a year, however, he
followed me over Europe, popping up most unexpectedly at different
places, always