At this time there was no piano at the Liszt cottage, but the boy learned to play at the neighbors', and practised at the palace of the Prince. His father and mother once took him there to hear Hummel. On this occasion Hummel played the Concerto by Reis in C minor. At the close of the performance, little Franz climbed up on the piano-stool and very solemnly played the same thing himself, to the immense delight of the listeners. The father of Liszt has recorded that at this time the child was but three years old, but after taking off the proper per cent for the pride of a fond parent, the probabilities are the boy was five. This is the better attested when we remember that it was only a few weeks later that, on the request of Prince Esterhazy, the boy played at a concert in Oedenburg. This launched the boy on that public career which was to continue for just seventy years. There is good evidence that the boy could read music before he could read writing, and that he threw into his playing such feeling and expression as Ferdinand Reis, who merely imitated his master, Beethoven, had never anticipated. That is to say, when he played "Reis," he improved on him, with variations all his own--attempts often made with the work of great composers, but which incur risks not advised. It will be seen that Liszt, although born in poverty, was from the very first in a distinctly musical environment. He could not remember a time when he did not attend the band-concerts--his parents wanted to go, and took the baby because there were no servants to take charge of him at home. Music was in the air, and everybody discussed it, just as in Italy you may hear the beggars in the streets criticizing art. The delightful insouciance of this child-pianist won the heart of every hearer, and his success quite turned the head of his father, the worthy bookkeeper. To give the child the advantages of an education was now his parents' one ambition. Having no money of his own, the father importuned his employer, the Prince, who rather smiled at the thought of spending time and money on such an elfin-like child. His playing was, of course, phenomenal, unaccountable, a sort of bursting out of the sun's rays, and, like the rainbow, a thing not to be seized upon and kept. It was mere precocity, and precocity is a rareripe fruit, with a worm at the core. This discouragement of the over-ambitious father was probably wise, for it gave the boy a chance to play I-Spy and leapfrog in the streets of the village, and to roam the fields. The lad became strong and well, and when ten years of age he had grown into a handsome youngster with already those marks of will and purpose on his beautiful face that were to be his credentials to place and power. He had often played at concerts in the towns and villages about, and when there were visitors at the palace this fine, slim son of the bookkeeper was sent for to entertain them.