was played for him. No matter how many
wrong notes he struck, he never lost the inten-
tion of a passage, he brought the substance
of it across by irregular and astonishing
means. He wore his teachers out. He could
never learn like other people, never acquired
any finish. He was always a negro prodigy who
played barbarously and wonderfully. As piano
playing, it was perhaps abominable, but as
music it was something real, vitalized by a
sense of rhythm that was stronger than his
other physical senses, -- that not only filled his
dark mind, but worried his body incessantly.
To hear him, to watch him, was to see a negro
enjoying himself as only a negro can. It was
as if all the agreeable sensations possible to
creatures of flesh and blood were heaped up on
those black and white keys, and he were gloat-
ing over them and trickling them through his
yellow fingers.

In the middle of a crashing waltz d'Arnault
suddenly began to play softly, and, turning to
one of the men who stood behind him, whis-
pered, "Somebody dancing in there." He
jerked his bullet head toward the dining-room.
"I hear little feet, -- girls, I 'spect."

Anson Kirkpatrick mounted a chair and

[[215]]

p214 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p215w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p216

v?