WORLD'S END

table military drill; arms and wrists stiff, knuckles depressed, second joint elevated, ringers pulled up and sharply pushed down. But poor Lanny had got a hodge-podge of everything that friends of his mother had been moved to recommend. First had come Professor Zimmalini, protйgй of the mother-in-law of Baroness de la Tourette. Having been a pupil of a pupil of Leschetizsky, the professor laid great stress upon equality of the fingers; the wrists depressed, the knuckles arched, the fingers rounded, the elbows curved even in ordinary legato. Lanny had been taught that for a whole winter; but then had come the London season, and after that Biarritz, and by the time they returned to their home, the professor had moved to Paris.

So then Lanny had a spell of the Breithaupt method, at a still higher price. He was told about forearm rotary motion, the importance of relaxation, and the avoidance of devitalization. But the excitable French professor who taught him all this suddenly fell under the spell of a stout concert singer and went off to the Argentine as her accompanist. Now Beauty had heard about a Professor Bau-meister, who had recently come to Cannes, and she had told Lanny in her offhand way to take lessons from him if he wanted to. But Lanny hadn't got around to thinking about it yet.

When the Frau Doktor Hofrat heard all this her orderly German soul was shocked. This poor child was playing the piano half a dozen ways at the same time; and the fact that he was perfectly happy whHe doing so made it even worse. She assured him that the Herr Professor Baumeister was no better than a musical anarchist, and recommended a friend who had once taught at Castle Stubendorf and would impart the official German technique. Lanny promised to put this recommendation before his mother, and thereby completed his conquest of Kurt's aunt. She took the two boys to a concert - the one extravagance she permitted herself.

When the time came for Kurt to leave, he told his disciple that the aunt had consented to write to her brother, endorsing Lanny as worthy of guesthood. The American boy was extraordinarily delighted about it, for by this time he had heard so much about the castle and the wonders of life there that it had come to seem to him a place out of Grimm's fairy tales. He would meet Kurt's family, see how Kurt lived, and become acquainted with the environment in which his friend's lofty ideals had been nurtured.

VI

Kurt went away, and Lanny settled down to reading German, practicing finger drill, and teaching fisherboys to dance Dalcroze. He was never lonely, for Leese and the housemaid Rosine loved him as if he were their own. He knew that Beauty would come in the end, and a month later she came, full of news and gaiety. Then, out of the blue, came a telegram from Robbie, saying that he was leaving Milan and would arrive the next day.

That was the way with Lanny's father, who thought no more of sailing for Europe than Beauty did of going in to Cannes, to have a fitting. He didn't bother to cable, for he might be taking a train for Constantinople or St. Petersburg, and he couldn't know how long he would be there. Post cards would come, sometimes from Newcastle, Connecticut, sometimes from London or Budapest. "See you soon," or something like that. The next thing would be a telegram, saying that he would arrive on such and such a train.

Robbie Budd was still under forty and was the sort of father any boy would choose if he were consulted. He had played football, and still played at polo now and then, and was solid and firm to the touch. He had abundant brown hair, like his son, and when you saw him in bathing trunks you discovered that it was all over his chest and thighs, like a Teddy bear's. From him Lanny had got his merry brown eyes and rosy cheeks, also his happy disposition and willingness to take things as they came.

Robbie liked to do everything that Lanny liked, or maybe it was the other way around. He would sit at the piano and romp for hours, with even worse technique than his son's. He was no good at "classical" music, but he knew college songs, Negro songs, musical comedy songs - everything American, some of it jolly and some sen-

timental. In the water he did not know what it was to tire; he would stay in half the day or night, and if he thought you were tiring, he would say: "Lie on your back," and would come under you and put his hands under your armpits, and begin to work with his feet, and it was as if a tugboat had taken hold of you. He had ordered two pairs of goggles, to be strapped around the head and fitted tight with rubber, so that he and Lanny could drop down and live among the fishes. Robbie would take one of the three-pointed spears used by the fishermen; he would stalk a big mиrou, and when he struck there would be a battle that Lanny would talk about for days.