“The good Count with the blue woollen stockings? Certainly.” “Very well, then, you _must_ be a splendid judge of music.” “But--why? How?” “Well, I don’t know exactly how or why. But it seems to me that your title is just as good as that of the gentlemen who do judge. Tell me, though, what happened.” “Oh, my goodness! It’s always the same old game. If I had thirty children, devil take me if one of them should be an artist of any sort. You see, I am on the inside track, and know how they sell their votes. It’s nothing but a blessed old shop. See here! Once I heard M. Lethière asking M. Cherubini for his vote for a pupil.” “Don’t refuse, my dear fellow,” he said, “we are such old friends, and my pupil really has talent.” “No, he shall not have my vote,” Cherubini answered. “He promised my wife an album of drawings that she wanted badly. He hasn’t even done her a single tree!” “That’s rather too bad of you,” said M. Lethière. “I vote for your people, and you might vote for mine. Look here! I’ll do you the album myself. I can’t say more than that.” “Ah, that’s another pair of boots. What is your pupil’s name and picture? I must not get muddled. Pingard, a pencil and paper!” “They went off into the window corner and wrote something, then I heard the musician say-- “All right, I will vote for him.” “Now, isn’t that disgusting? If I had had a son in the competition and they had played him a trick like that, wouldn’t it have been enough to make me chuck myself out of window?” “Come, Pingard, calm down a bit and tell me about to-day.” “Well, when M. Dupont had finished singing your cantata they began writing their verdicts, and I brought the hurn” (Pingard always would stick in that “h”). “There was a musician close by whispering to an architect, ‘Don’t give him your vote; he’s no good at all, and never will be. He is gone on that eccentric creature Beethoven, and we shall never get him right again.’ ‘Really!’ said the architect. ‘Yet--’ ‘Well, ask Cherubini. You will take his word, won’t you? He will tell you that Beethoven has turned the fellow’s head--’ I beg pardon,” said Pingard, breaking off his story, “but who is this M. Beethoven? He doesn’t belong to the Academy, and yet everyone seems to be talking of him.” “No, no! He’s a German. Go on.”