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 his left followed
with full-bodied chords, each of which exceeded the octave. Before,
however, there was time to laugh, this riot ceased, and became a
mournful cadence, to the slowly passing harmonies of which, Krafft
sang:


I am weary of everything that is, under the sun.
I sicken at the long lines of rain, which are black against the sky;
They drip, for a restless heart, with the drip of despair:
For me, winds must rage, trees bend, and clouds sail stormily.


The whirlwind of the prelude commenced anew; the chords became still
vaster; the player swayed from side to side, like a stripling-tree in
a storm. Madeleine said, "Tch!" in disgust, but the rest of the
company, who had only waited for this, burst into peals of laughter;
some bent double in their seats, some leant back with their chins in
the air. Even Dove smiled. Just, however, as those whose sense of
humour was most highly developed, mopped their faces with gestures of
exhaustion, and assured their neighbours that they "could not, really
could not laugh any more," Furst entered and flapped his hands.

"Here he comes!"

A sudden silence fell, broken only by a few hysterical giggles from