MR. BUFFALO (who has overheard him, steps up).  Now, Herr Dominie, how do you like my method?  Perhaps you have a different one?  Nevertheless, that shan’t prevent our being good friends.  Certainly, if any thing is to be accomplished in these times, it is necessary to keep at work,—­that is my doctrine.  But Stock, here, has unusual patience and perseverance.  He has worked through all Cramer’s 96 Etudes in succession without grumbling.  He was wretched enough over them; but his papa bought him a saddle-horse to ride round on every day, and he revived in the fresh air.

     (Herr Zach with his wife and an old aunt are playing cards in the
     further room.)

DOMINIE.  But do you not combine the study of musical pieces with the study of exercises, in order that the cultivation of the taste may go hand in hand with mechanical improvement?

MR. BUFFALO.  My dear friend, you are too narrow-minded there,—­you make a mistake:  taste must come of itself, from much playing and with years.  Your Cecilia played the two new waltzes, and the Nocturne of Chopin, and Beethoven’s trio very nicely.  But then that was all drilled into her:  we could tell that well enough by hearing it,—­Stock and I.

DOMINIE.  Did it sound unnatural to you,—­mannered? and did you think it wooden, dry, dull?

MR. BUFFALO.  Not exactly that; but the trouble was it sounded studied.  The public applauded, it is true; but they don’t know any thing.  Stock and I thought—­

DOMINIE.  Do you not think that the taste for a beautiful interpretation may be early awakened, without using severity with the pupil? and that to excite the feeling for music, to a certain degree, even in early years, is in fact essential?  The neglect of this very thing is the reason that we are obliged to listen to so many players, who really have mechanically practised themselves to death, and have reduced musical art to mere machinery,—­to an idle trick of the fingers.

MR. BUFFALO.  That’s all nonsense.  I say teach them the scales, to run up and down the gamut!  Gradus ad Parnassum’s the thing!  Classical, classical!  Yesterday you made your daughter play that Trill-Etude by Carl Meyer.  Altogether too fine-sounding!  It tickles the ear, to be sure, especially when it is played in such a studied manner. We stick to Clementi and Cramer, and to Hummel’s piano-school,—­the good old school.  You have made a great mistake with your eldest daughter.

DOMINIE.  The world does not seem to agree with you.

MADAME, of the Tz. family (has listened and lost a trick by it, steps up quickly, and says maliciously).  You must agree that she would have played better, if you had left her for ten years with Cramer and Clementi.  We don’t like this tendency to Schumann and Chopin.  But what folly to talk!  One must be careful what one says to the father of such a child!  It is quite a different thing with us.  Mr. Buffalo is bound to our Stock by no bond of affection.  He follows out his aim without any hesitation or vanity, and looks neither to the right nor to the left, but straightforward.