"Really...."
"For instance, that when you were a boy you had played one of your own compositions to some Italian virtuoso, and that he had foretold a great future for you."
"Great future.... Great heavens, but it wasn't a virtuoso, Herr Eissler. It was a clergyman, from whom, as a matter of fact, I learned to play the organ."
Eissler continued: "And in the evening, when your mother had gone to bed, you would often improvise for hours on end in the room."
George nodded and sighed quietly. It seemed as though he had had much more talent at that time. "Work!" he thought ardently, "work!..."
He looked up again. "Yes," he said humorously, "that is always the trouble, infant prodigies so seldom come to anything."
"I hear you want to be a conductor, Baron."
"Yes," replied George resolutely, "I am going to Germany next autumn. Perhaps as an accompanist first in the municipal theatre of some little town, just as it comes along."
"But you would not have any objection to a Court theatre?"
"Of course not. What makes you say that, Herr Eissler? if it is not a rude question."