"Parbleu, ce bon Valtères—je l'connais bien!"
Next day Tescheles came up to an English student called Fox and said:
"Well, old stick‑in‑the‑mud, how are you getting on?"
"Why, you don't mean to say you're an Englishman?" says Barty to Tescheles.
PETER THE HERMIT AU PIQUET
"Good heavens! you don't mean to say you are! fancy your calling poor old Walters Vàltères!"
And after that they became very intimate, and that was a good thing for Barty.
The polyglot Tescheles was of a famous musical family, of mixed German and Russian origin, naturalized in England and domiciled in France—a true cosmopolite and a wonderful linguist, besides being also a cultivated musician and excellent painter; and all the musicians, famous or otherwise, that passed through Antwerp made his rooms a favorite resort and house of call. And Barty was introduced into a world as delightful to him as it was new—and to music that ravished his soul with a novel enchantment: Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Schumann—and he found that Schubert had written a few other songs besides the famous "Serenade"!