That Clever Kink.
Did you find out how much that nobleman was worth? The answer is:
£21,459. It is found by taking all of the letters in the passage quoted that are employed in the Roman notation—I, V, X, L, C, D, M—setting down their value in the Arabic notation, and adding all together.
The Music Rack.
Good Stories about Chopin.
Frédéric François Chopin, born 1809, died 1849, very early showed his sensitiveness to music, when only a baby prevailing upon his parents to allow him to share the lessons given to his eldest sister. Many tales are told of his performances as a child, but perhaps the best is the one related by Karasowski, his biographer, of his appearance at a public concert for the benefit of the poor when he was not quite nine years old. He was announced to play Gyrowetz's piano-forte concerto, and a few hours before he was put on a chair, and there dressed with more than ordinary care, being arrayed in a new jacket with an ornamented collar specially ordered for the occasion. When the concert was over Frédéric returned to his mother, who had not been present; she asked him what the public liked best. "Oh, mamma, everybody looked only at my collar!" Little Frédéric could do almost anything he wished with the piano, and all his life, when in happy moods, he was fond of weaving fanciful fairy tales and romances in music so beautiful and real that the listeners were able to follow and understand by the mere tones alone.
One evening his father was away, and there arose a tremendous hubbub among the pupils which the assistant master was quite powerless to quell. Frédéric came in, saw how things were, and good-naturedly sat down to the piano. Calling the other boys around him, he promised, if they kept quite still, to tell them a new and most thrilling story on the piano. This at once quieted them. Frédéric extinguished all the lights (for he was all his life fond of playing in the dark). Then he sat down to the piano and began his story.
He described robbers coming to a house, putting ladders to the windows, and then, frightened by a noise, rushing away into the woods. They go on and on, deeper and deeper into the wild recesses of the forest, and then they lie down under the trees and soon fall asleep. He went on, playing more and more softly, until he found that the sleep was not only in his story, but had overcome his listeners. On this he crept out noiselessly to tell his mother and sisters what had happened, and then went back with them to the room with a light. Every one of the boys was fast asleep. Frédéric returned to the piano, struck some noisy chords, the enchantment was over, and all the sleepers were rubbing their eyes and wondering what was the matter.
Meredyth Jones, R.T.K.