ized. He stepped into the first
shop to give the messenger his receipt, but when once in the street
again his impatience was not to be checked, so he broke the seal, and,
now walking, now standing still, devoured his letter.

"I was sitting at my sewing-table," continued Madame Mozart, in her
story, "and heard my husband come upstairs and ask the servant for me.
His step and tone were more cheerful and gay than I had expected, and
more so than I quite liked. He went first to his room, but came
immediately to me. 'Good-evening!' he said. I answered him quietly,
without looking up. After walking across the room once or twice, with a
smothered yawn he took up the fly-clap from behind the door--a most
unusual proceeding--and remarking, 'Where do all these flies come from?'
began to slap about, as loudly as possible. The noise is particularly
unpleasant to him, and I had been careful not to let him hear it. 'H'm,'
I thought, 'when he does it himself it's another matter.' Besides, I had
not noticed many flies. His strange behavior vexed me much. 'Six at a
blow!' he cried. 'Do you see?' No answer. Then he laid something on the
table before me, so near that I could not help seeing it without lifting
my eyes from my work. It was nothing less than a heap of ducats. He kept
on with his nonsense behind my back, talking to himself, and giving a
slap now and then. 'The disagreeable good-for-nothing beasts! What were
they put in the world for"' _Pitsch_. 'To be killed, I suppose!'
_Patsch_. 'Natural history teaches us how rapidly their numbers
multiply.' _Pitsch, patsch_. 'In my house they are soon dispatched. Ah,
_maledette! disperate_! Here are twenty more. Do you want them?'
And he came and laid down another pile of gold. I had had hard work to
keep from laughing, and could hold out no longer. He fell on my neck and
we laughed as if for a wager.

"'But where did the money come from' I asked, as he shook the last
pieces from the roll. 'From Prince Esterhazy,[33]rough Haydn. Read the
letter.' I read:

"'Eisenstadt, Etc.

"'_My good friend_.--His Highness has, to my great delight, intrusted
me with the errand of sending to you these 60 ducats. We have been
playing your quartettes again, and his Highness was even more charmed
and delighted than at the first hearing, three months ago. He said to
me (I must write it word for word): "When Mozart dedicated these
works to you, he thought to honor you alone. Yet he cannot t