“Pray, Monsieur Crotchet, (she always spoke with a French accent to strangers) do you play the Battle of Prague?” I can recollect nothing but an emphatic “No, madam”—a feeling as of a pail of iced water pouring down my back—a confused breaking up of the circle around the piano—a fruitless search for a glass of wine—a _prestissimo_ movement to the entry—a successful search for my hat—a rush to the street, and as I shut the door, the martial strains of the Battle of Prague, drummed out by a more complaisant amateur than myself, for the benefit of Madame Hecate. Oh, that Battle of Prague! Who shall ever pretend to give its official bulletin? Who shall describe the cries of the wounded and the groans of the dying, elicited from its auditors as it has been “fought o’er again” on countless pianos? Its victims are legion. Its progress is remorseless. It goes on and will go on to the end of time, murdering the peace of mind of every luckless owner of an ear such as mine. Its composer—if the writer of such a disturbing work can be called a composer—must have been possessed of an evil spirit from the fatal battle-field, condemned to roam this earth for the torment of the race, and seeking retribution for his own victimization by victimizing all that come after him. My next essay of the musical life of the city, was at a _soirée_ of Professor Millefiori, the fashionable Italian vocal teacher—a sort of compromise, in appearance, between a Paris _petit maître_ and an American Figaro. His pupils were all to sing, and by the courtesy usually extended to amateurs, I was invited. The first piece announced for the evening’s entertainment was _Casta Diva_. Of course it was. Was there ever an amateur _soirée_ that it was not the first piece? At the appointed time, a young lady of sixteen summers, with very bare neck and arms, hair done up in curls and furbelows by a French _coiffeur_, hands in white kid gloves, a variety of her mother’s jewels on head, hands and breast, a little pug of a nose beneath two very innocent-looking eyes, and, as was said, a splendid _soprano_ voice, stood up by the professor’s piano to personate the Druid priestess. “_Ca-ha-ha-hasta Dee-e-evar_,” she began, emphasizing each division of the words, and screaming them out as if she really thought she could make the _Casta Diva_—the moon—hear her vociferous appeal, and paying no regard to the fact that the chaste goddess was, at that particular time, enlightening the other side of the globe.