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"WRONGLY ATTRIBUTED."
You've heard of Willy Ferrero, the Boy Conductor? A musical prodigy,
seven years old, who will order the fifth oboe out of the Albert Hall as
soon as look at him. Well, he has a rival.
Willy, as perhaps you know, does not play any instrument himself; he
only conducts. His rival (Johnny, as I think of him) does not conduct as
yet; at least, not audibly. His line is the actual manipulation of the
pianoforte--the Paderewski touch. Johnny lives in the flat below, and I
hear him touching.
On certain mornings in the week--no need to specify them--I enter my
library and give myself up to literary composition. On the same mornings
little Johnny enters his music-room (underneath) and gives himself up to
musical composition. Thus we are at work together.
The worst of literary composition is this: that when you have got hold
of what you feel is a really powerful idea you find suddenly that you
have been forestalled by some earlier writer--Sophocles or Shakspeare or
George R. Sims. Then you have to think again. This frequently happens to
me upstairs; and downstairs poor Johnny will find to his horror one day
that his great work has already been given to the world by another--a
certain Dr. John Bull.
Johnny, in fact, is discovering "God Save the King" with one finger.
As I dip my pen in the ink and begin to write, Johnny strikes up. On the
first day when this happened, some three months ago, I rose from my
chair and stood stiffly through the performance--an affair of some
minutes, owing to a little difficulty with "Send him victorious," a line
which always bothers Johnny. However, he got right through it at last,
after harking back no more than twice, and I sat down to my work again.
Generally speaking, "God Save the King" ends a show; it would be
disloyal to play any other tune after that. Johnny quite saw this ...
and so began to play "God Save the King" again.
I hope that His Majesty, the Lord Chamberlain, the late Dr. Bull, or
whoever is most concerned, will sympathise with me when I say that this
time I remained seated. I have my living to earn.
From that day Johnny has interpreted Dr. John Bull's favourite
composition nine times every morning. As this has been going on for
three months, and as the line I mentioned has two special rehearsals to
itself before coming out right, you can easily work out how many
send-him-victoriouses Johnny and I have collaborated in. About two
thousand.
Very well. Now, you ask yourself, why did I not send a polite note to
Johnny's father asking him to restrain his little boy from
over-composition, begging him not to force the child's musical genius
too quickly, imploring him (in short) to lock up the piano and lose the
key? What kept me from this course? The answer is "Patriotism." Those
deep feelings for his country which one man will express glibly by
rising nine times during the morning at the sound of the National
Anthem, another will direct to more solid uses. It was my duty, I felt,
not to discourage Johnny. He was showing qualities which could not fail,
when he grew up, to be of value to the nation. Loyalty, musical genius,
determination, patience, industry--never before have these qualities
been so finely united in a child of six. Was I to say a single word to
disturb the delicate balance of such a boy's mind? At six one is
extraordinarily susceptible to outside influence. A word from his father
to the effect that the gentleman above was getting sick of it, and
Johnny's whole life might be altered.
No, I would bear it grimly.
And then, yesterday, who should write to me but Johnny's father himself.
This was the letter:--
"Dear Sir,--I do not wish to interfere unduly in the affairs of the
other occupants of these flats, but I feel bound to call your attention
to the fact that for many weeks now there has been a flow of water from
your bathroom which has penetrated through the ceiling of my bathroom,
particularly after you have been using the room in the mornings. May I
therefore beg you to be more careful in future not to splash or spill
water on your floor, seeing that it causes inconvenience to the tenants
beneath you?