It was indeed wonderful.  With his instrument he imitated the sound of a laughing voice, high up above the monotonous chord:  softly at first, as though far in the distance; then louder and nearer, the sustaining notes of the minor falling away one after the other and losing themselves, as the merriment gained ground on the sadness; till finally, with a burst of life and vitality of which it would be impossible to convey any idea, the whole body of mirth broke into a wild tarantella movement, so vivid and elastic and noisy that it seemed to Nino that he saw the very feet of the dancers, and heard the jolly din of the tambourine and the clattering, clappering click of the castanets.

“That,” said Benoni, suddenly stopping, “is life with laughter, be it ever so sad and monotonous before.  Which do you prefer?”

“You are the greatest artist in the world!” cried Nino, enthusiastically; “but I should have been a raving madman if you had played that chord any longer.”

“Of course,” said Benoni, “and I should have gone mad if I had not laughed.  Poor Schumann, you know, died insane because he fancied he always heard one note droning in his ears.”

“I can understand that,” said Nino.  “But it is late, and I must be going home.  Forgive my rudeness and reluctance to come with you.  I was moody and unhappy.  You have given me more pleasure than I can tell you.”

“It will seem little enough to-morrow, I dare say,” replied Benoni.  “That is the way with pleasures.  But you should get them all the same, when you can, and grasp them as tightly as a drowning man grasps a straw.  Pleasures and money, money and pleasures.”

Nino did not understand the tone in which his host made this last remark.  He had learned different doctrines from me.

“Why do you speak so selfishly, after showing that you can give pleasure so freely, and telling me that we are all brothers?” he asked.

“If you are not in a hurry, I will explain to you that money is the only thing in this world worth having,” said Benoni, drinking another cup of the wine, which appeared to have no effect whatever on his brain.

“Well?” said Nino, curious to hear what he had to say.

“In the first place, you will allow that from the noblest moral standpoint a man’s highest aim should be to do good to his fellow-creatures?  Yes, you allow that.  And to do the greatest possible good to the greatest possible number?  Yes, you allow that also.  Then, I say, other things being alike, a good man will do the greatest possible amount of good in the world when he has the greatest possible amount of money.  The more money, the more good; the less money, the less good.  Of course money is only the means to the end, but nothing tangible in the world can ever be anything else.  All art is only a means to the exciting of still more perfect images in the brain; all crime is a means to the satisfaction of passion, or avarice, which is itself a king-passion;