Roy Norton

“ The oldest patrons could remember when Schiller's had been the most famous place in New York, and that the original orchestra had numbered fifteen pieces, also that the advent of Herr Schmidt had been an occasion of sufficient importance to cause a musical flutter. To have for orchestra leader a man who had been musical director for the King of Saxony was a great event in those far-off times when even music seemed young, and that for decades Schmidt's orchestra was the finest musical organization of the city seemed natural and proper. ”

“ But before “der povs” had recovered from this exciting event, Herr Schmidt, torn by emotion, tear dimmed, and overwrought, slipped from Schiller's Haus and was starting for 110th-st. Once there, he tried to readjust himself. All the years he had thought of returning to Leipsic; now that it was possible the return had lost its glamourous charm. Yet he felt that he must go. It was not befitting that a man of his future station should be untraveled. ”

“ When gray headed patrons became querulous, sitting beneath the steins with their grandchildren, they bemoaned the fact more than Herr Schmidt, who by degrees had become accustomed to it.
Each time a man dropped out, by death, his fellows sent him a harp of immortelles. Twice there had been diversity of opinion; once when the first violin, the clarinet, and the trombone had wanted an anchor, with the suggestion that there was hope ”

“ All his simple life he had dreamed, as all men dream, of having lots of money, sometimes in wild flights of imagination picturing what extravagances he would indulge in did he ever possess as much as twenty thousand dollars. ”

“ THE great lawyer rose to meet him and came forward. “You are Mr. Heinrich Wilhelm Schmidt, who for so many years has directed the orchestra at Schiller's Haus, are you not?” he asked, and Herr Schmidt confirmed the identification.
He thought there was something smug, terrible, and tigerlike in the way the lawyer asked him to take a seat in front of the desk as he opened a drawer.
“There's no further need for identification,” the lawyer added. “I have known you in person—by sight, at least—since I was a boy. Moreover, I have taken pains to be certain that you are the man.” ”

“ There was not a man of the lot that could not be styled an artist, each was playing up to his standard, and yet his director was deaf with that reiteration, “You are now rich!” Each marked and wondered at his abstraction. ”

“ The orchestra began the piece with the new director trying to enforce another tempo of his own. The clarinet player, gray headed as were all of Schmidt's orchestra, looked up and for the first time sighted the outcast. He was so excited that he played a goosenote, and Herr Dipple, amazed and wondering what could have caused such a rare mistake, whirled round in his seat and sighted Herr Schmidt. He too distinguished himself with a false note ”

“ IN Schiller's he was a hero. Nearly every night the same tables were occupied by the same people. There was the Herr Doctor, who liked Offenbach and thereby won high regard from the orchestra. There was the delicatessen man, who had grown rich and was assertive that Wagner was far greater than Beethoven. There was “Der Brofessor,” who frequently gladdened the heart of Herr Schmidt by asking him to play a piano solo, “A very small one, blease, from der greatest of musicians, Chopin.” All the younger guests were riffraff who didn't count and asked for the most ridiculous selections. ”

“ Mein uncle with whom I quarreled fifty years ago is dead!”
“He is, and. what is more, you are his sole heir,” the lawyer continued. “He leaves an estate valued at something like a million marks. Let me see; that's about two hundred thousand dollars, our money.”
Herr Schmidt sat and gazed out of the office window, bewildered. ”

“ He broke down at that, while in a brief interim they peered at him, open eyed, and suddenly Herr Dipple took off his huge, iron framed spectacles and wiped them. The motion released them from the spell and they tried to make it a joyous season of congratulation. The manager of Schiller's Haus, surprised by this demonstration, joined them and heard the story. He too congratulated; but he shook his head sadly.
“What shall I do?” he said several times. “What shall I do? Perhaps I shall try that Herr Professor who is concert pianist for the Royal German band what plays at Carnegie, hein? ”