IV.



It was through Dove's agency--Dove was always on the spot to guide and
assist his friends; to advise where the best, or cheapest, or rarest,
of anything was to be had, from secondhand Wagner scores to hair
pomade; he knew those shops where the "half-quarters" of ham or
roast-beef weighed heavier than elsewhere, restaurants where the beer
had least froth and the cutlets were largest for the money; knew the
ins and outs of Leipzig as no other foreigner did, knew all that went
on, and the affairs of everybody, as though he went through life
garnering in just those little facts that others were apt to overlook.
Through Dove, Maurice became a paying guest at a dinner-table kept by
two maiden ladies, who eked out their income by providing a plain
meal, at a low price, for respectable young people.

The company was made up to a large extent of English-speaking
foreigners. There were several university students--grave-faced, older
men, with beards and spectacles--who looked down on the young
musicians, and talked, of set purpose, on abstruse subjects. More
noteworthy were two American pianists: Ford, who could not carry a
single glass of beer, and played better when he had had more than one;
and James, a wiry, red-haired man, with an unfaltering opinion of
himself, and an iron wrist--by means of a week's practice, he could
ruin any piano. Two ladies were also present. Philadelphia Jensen; of
German-American parentage, was a student of voice-production, under a
Swedish singing master who had lately set musical circles in a
ferment, with his new and extraordinary method: its devotees swore