If you consider with what an important personality I had chosen to deal, you will not be surprised when hearing that it was not "on the basis of those wonderful ideas he had exposed to me" that Mr. Bischoff agreed to write the said libretto. He wanted the basis to be more ... substantial. I need therefore hardly tell you what the next step was. And, still considering that Mr. Bischoff was the first Viennese actor, and had refused offers for mere translations from a London firm at ten shillings a thousand words, you will easily imagine which figure I asked Daniel Cooper & Co., Ltd., to put on his next cheque. But I tore my letter immediately into pieces and wrote another, asking for £50 more, I could as well bleed my poor dad of £300 as of £250, couldn't I? And the supplement would enable me to show my intense gratitude to my charming nurse, and even to show it more than once.
I deeply regret to announce that Miss Doblana exhibited a much greater satisfaction when I offered her a beautiful fan of white ostrich feathers than when I had opened to her the perspective of my opera. She was really winsome as she thanked me, oh! so winsome. Yet, to-day, after years, I think that it was very foolish of me to make her such a gift. Most men will share this opinion, although most girls will judge it otherwise. As for Mitzi, I fear that she foresaw more gifts and decided there and then to take my opera into the bargain.
Anyhow, that fan was bought (but not paid for) and offered to the lady of my heart before the cheque arrived from London. And then something very awkward occurred. Daniel Cooper & Co., Ltd., sent me a cheque for £300, not payable to me but to Mr. Bischoff. I am sure this mischievous move was caused by mother. For while father's letter was nice and gentle as ever, and while he stated being sure that with such a librettist I would achieve something remarkable, mother wrote that in her idea it was nonsense to attempt an opera before having well learned how to write one; and there was something between the lines that read as if she was smelling a rat.
Now, what was I going to do with my cheque for £300? I could not well go to Mr. Bischoff and ask him for change, for if I knew little of women and even less of men, I knew already a lot of the third sex, viz.: the artists. There was no probability of his being able to give me change for £50, and, candidly, I did not trust any artist sufficiently, especially not Mr. Bischoff whom I scarcely knew, to let him have the cheque as it was, and wait for the £50 change until he had cleared it. I felt like a schoolboy, comfortless and wretched, and as usual: silly.
For three days I went about absolutely miserable with my big cheque in my pocket. My state of mind could not escape Mr. Hammer who, finding a few bad mistakes in a fugue of mine, declared that this and the rest of my behaviour proved clearly that I was in love, an accident that had befallen him in former years every six weeks, so that he had a sufficient experience to pass judgment on other people. Now, if even Hammer saw my uneasiness, you will understand that it was soon noticed by Mr. Doblana who, although a musician too, was far more a human being. He inquired. He insisted. For one of the results of being so human was a certain degree of curiosity.
"It must have something to do with your opera," he asserted at last. "How far have you got with it?"
"Oh!" said I, "I have not begun yet."
"Then," cried he, "why do you make such a face as if you had lost your score?"
I am sure that, when I heard this question, I looked at him in the most idiotic fashion you may imagine. And I must have looked at him for a long time, say, twenty seconds, which is much longer than most people think. Two ideas had flashed up through my brain, (or whatever you may call it).
The second—which was probably the result of the excitement caused by the first one—the second was to return the £300 cheque to my father, and to ask him for several smaller cheques which I could hand Mr. Bischoff in proportion to the work done, a proceeding which certainly would please the mater, for it proved me to be an earnest chap.