Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

SGAMBATI 67
to play to Liszt the next day, when all at once I
perceived that Sgambati had come in, and was talk-
ing to my sister ; and when I joined them, there he
was, smiling at the little creature, whom my sister
had, on his entrance, swathed up hastily in a couple
of large towels. He said over and over again, as h6
looked at her, ' Quanto e carina ! quanto e carina !'
(' What a darling !' etc.). Those who feel an mterest
in Sgambati as a composer and as an artist, will be
still further interested in him when they hear that
the dreamy, nonchalant, and often supremely dis-
dainful-looking musician has an inborn capacity for
letting himself down to the level of quite small
children, and making them love him and feel at
home with him.
How often has he not improvised a doll with a
knotted pocket-handkerchief, and not only charmed
my little niece, but also highly amused both her aunt
and mother, by making his doll perform all sorts of
ridiculous jumps and somersaults ! So fond was our
little one of him, and so firm a faith had she in his
sympathy with her in all her childish troubles—^
scratches, bruises, bumps, and such-like—that when
her mother and I applied the panacea usual in such
cases, ' a kiss on the place to make it well,' the small
creature has more than once said to us, ' But I want
Sgambati to kiss it too.'
But to resume the thread of my narrative. Sgam-
bati had come in order to tell me how I was to