It was delightful to hear the half-suppressed “Ah’s” and “Bravos!” so characteristic of the French audience after the Andante of the Mozart Symphony. I confess that the more spontaneous approval which European audiences give in drama, opera, or concert is exceedingly gratifying and stimulates the artist to the very best that is in him. Every artist who is worth his salt will always approach an audience with the feeling that they are as strangers whom through his art he must win over as friends. This feeling exists whether he makes his first bow as a beginner or appears for the three thousandth time after twenty years of public work. It is a wonderful moment for him when, after having done his best and given all there is in him, his audience show by the intensity of their approval that the “song which he breathed into the air” has found its home “in the heart of a friend.” On Sunday morning, May 9, at eleven, the orchestra of the Conservatoire gave a great party in our honor as a return courtesy for one that we had given to the French Orchestra on their arrival in America in 1918. We all met at the _Salle du Conservatoire_ where M. Leon, representing the Ministry of Fine Arts, was waiting to receive me. With the Conservatoire Orchestra were various French masters, including the venerable Gabriel Fauré, and Messager, the conductor. After various speeches of welcome, I was presented with a beautiful engraving of Beethoven and made an honorary member of the Conservatoire Orchestra. We then marched to the _Taverne du Nègre_, where luncheon was served. There were so many different kinds of wine-glasses before each plate that I asked permission to make a short speech in English to my orchestra. It consisted of the following: “Gentlemen, remember we have a concert this afternoon, so please mix your wine with much water.” Needless to say, in all the speeches the theme of the war was constantly played upon by the French orators—how much France owed to our intervention and to the bravery of our soldiers. It would have been very pleasant to stay on in Paris, where our orchestra were beginning to feel very much at home, and rest upon our young laurels, but our tour had only begun and we had to carry on!