Paderewski arrived in a small western town about noon one day and decided to take a walk in the afternoon. While strolling ling along he heard a piano, and, following the sound, came to a house on which was a sign reading:
"Miss Jones. Piano lessons 25 cents an hour."
Pausing to listen he heard the young woman trying to play one of Chopin's nocturnes, and not succeeding very well.
Paderewski walked up to the house and knocked. Miss Jones came to the door and recognized him at once. Delighted, she invited him in and he sat down and played the nocturne as only Paderewski can, afterward spending an hour in correcting her mistakes. Miss Jones thanked him and he departed.
Some months afterward he returned to the town, and again took the same walk.
He soon came to the home of Miss Jones, and, looking at the sign, he read:
"Miss Jones. Piano lessons $1.00 an hour. (Pupil of Paderewski.)"
Shortly after Raymond Hitchcock made his first big hit in New York, Eddie Foy, who was also playing in town, happened to be passing Daly's Theatre, and paused to look at the pictures of Hitchcock and his company that adorned the entrance. Near the pictures was a billboard covered with laudatory extracts from newspaper criticisms of the show.
When Foy had moodily read to the bottom of the list, he turned to an unobtrusive young man who had been watching him out of the corner of his eye.