On arriving at Zullichau our travellers were informed by the postmaster that they would have to wait an hour for horses.  This announcement opened up an anything but pleasing prospect.  The professor and his companion did the best that could be done in these distressing circumstances—­namely, took a stroll through the small town, although the latter had no amenities to boast of, and the fact of a battle having been fought there between the Russians and Prussians in 1759 would hardly fire their enthusiasm.  Matters, however, became desperate when on their return there was still neither sign nor sound of horses.  Dr. Jarocki comforted himself with meat and drink, but Chopin began to look uneasily about him for something to while away the weariness of waiting.  His search was not in vain, for in an adjoining room he discovered an old piano of unpromising appearance, which, on being opened and tried, not only turned out to be better than it looked, but even in tune.  Of course our artist did not bethink himself long, but sat down at once, and launched out into an improvisation on a Polish air.  One of his fellow-passengers, a German, and an inveterate smoker, attracted by the music, stepped in, and was soon so wrapped up in it that he forgot even his pipe.  The other passengers, the postmaster, his buxom wife, and their pretty daughters, came dropping in, one after the other.  But when this peaceful conventicle had for some time been listening silently, devoutly, and admiringly, lo, they were startled by a stentorian voice bawling into the room the words:—­“Gentlemen, the horses are put in.”  The postmaster, who was indignant at this untimely interruption, begged the musician to continue.  But Chopin said that they had already waited too long, it was time to depart.  Upon this there was a general commotion; the mistress of the house solicited and cajoled, the young ladies bashfully entreated with their eyes, and all pressed around the artist and supported the request, the postmaster even offering extra horses if Chopin would go on with his playing.  Who could resist?  Chopin sat down again, and resumed his fantasia.  When he had ended, a servant brought in wine, the postmaster proposed as a toast “the favourite of Polyhymnia,” and one of the audience, an old musician, gave voice to his feelings by telling the hero that, “if Mozart had heard you, he would have shaken hands with you and exclaimed ‘Bravo!’ An insignificant man like me dare not do that.”  After Chopin had played a mazurka as a wind-up, the tall postmaster took him in his arms, carried him to the coach—­the pockets of which the ladies had already filled with wine and eatables—­and, bidding him farewell, said that as long as he lived he would think with enthusiasm of Frederick Chopin.