“ THEN THE BAND PLAYED” 
301 
A little later 
he told us that 
w hen Dvorak 
lieft school his 
father took him 
into the busi- 
ness, thinking 
there was a 
better living to 
be made out of 
beer than out 
of music. 
At this point 
the applause 
from the 
musicians was 
most pro- 
nounced, show- 
ing conclusively 
thattheyagreed 
with Dvorak, 
senior, as to the 
sort of “ bars 75 
out of which 
most money 
was to be 
made ! 
Perhaps the 
most curious 
and at the same 
time amusing 
incident that I can recall at the moment is of 
an occasion when, during a concert, I wielded 
my baton with so much gusto that it slipped 
‘THE DRUMS WERE FULL OK ALL SORTS OF 
have just missed 
Dances by 
thatnaughty 
those 
caught it grace- 
fully, without 
so much as 
turning a hair, 
and, coming up 
to the platform, 
quietly handed 
it back to me in 
the most matter- 
of-fact manner, 
and without the 
slightest inter- 
ruption of the 
performance. 
Two other in- 
cidents may be 
amusing. The 
first relates to 
a conversation 
overheard in the 
Bournem 0 u t h 
Winter Gardens 
twenty years 
ago. 
“ Oh, what a 
pity you are 
late,” said a 
lady to a friend 
who had just 
arrived. “ You 
delightful German 
out of my 
hand and went 
flying through 
the air over 
the heads of 
the audience. 
1 expected 
and dreaded 
that it would 
hit some un- 
suspecting person in the eye, and foresaw, 
without doubt, at least a termination to 
the selection upon which we were engaged. 
Not a bit of it ! An attendant who was 
stationed in the centre aisle saw it coming. 
As though it were the most natural thing 
in the world to see batons flying through 
‘THE BATON SLIPPED OUT OF 
MY HAND.” 
Henry the 
Eighth ! ” — 
meaning, of 
course, the 
ever gr e e n 
composition 
of our popu- 
lar British 
composer, 
Edward Ger- 
man. 
The other 
is as f 0 1- 
lows : — 
At one of 
our sym- 
phony con- 
“ THE ATTENDANT CAUGHT IT 
GRACEFULLY.” 
