172 STRAY -AW AYS 



classical music, and were directed to a tall pavilion, 

 with a great array of chairs and tables in front of it. 

 A horseshoe of covered-in benches and tables enclosed 

 these ; it was late in the year for open-air music, 

 and the audience was thinly scattered over the wilder- 

 ness of chairs ; we got into the most sheltered corner, 

 and ordered coffee. The music struck richly and 

 melodiously out into the dark, cold breeze ; it was a 

 large band and an impressive one, but its conception 

 of classical music was ancient opera overture, and a 

 gallop in which a delirious leading part was sustained 

 by a toy nightingale, who flew on the crest of the 

 stampeding phrases. Yet, except for the cold that 

 delicately nipped the hands and feet, it was passing 

 pleasant to sit and drink hot coffee under the lamps 

 and the restless trees, with the music crashing and 

 wailing, and the mild-mannered people eating sand- 

 wiches and drinking tea. A young man came up to 

 the next table, loudly addressing as " Mawther " a 

 lady who was so rapturously engaged in shaking hands 

 with the waiter as not to notice his approach. He 

 seemed to be all that was needed to complete the joy 

 of the rencontre, and he and Mawther, still in cordial 

 exchange of conversation with the waiter, settled 

 down to cold pressed beef and an unknown syrup 

 mixed with water ; then all faces were suddenly turned 

 upwards, as a balloon drifted up into the night across 

 the opening in the trees, and a rush for a further 

 view was made to the door of the enclosure, headed 

 by a white-capped band of female cooks, who had 

 burst forth from somewhere under the bandstand. 

 The balloon sailed fast on the brisk wind, " a pale 

 moth rushing to a star," or an aerial ghost flying from 

 the lamps of Tivoli ; it dwindled, and passed away 

 towards the harbour and the Baltic. 



We dawdled through the crowd to another band, 



