Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-10-16
PIZZI.
BY EDWARD MARSHALL
Copyright, 1885, By Bachelor, johnson & Bach
elle-

l.
The patrons of Moraldi's Italian
table d'hote restaurant liked music
with their dinner, and they liked good
music. After old Pizzi and his daugh-
ter came they had it for one hour
every evening. Pizzi played the guitar
ana Guilia played the lnandolin-oh,
how she played the mandolin! Moral
DIS is an expensive restaurant. Dinner
there costs dollar and half, and no
better dinneris served in all New York
That is why the Pizzis played there
PlZzi, who had once been the leader OF
great italian orchestra, was still too
proud to play for his dinner, although
misfortunes had come thick as
flakes in a snowstcrm after rheuma-
tism had tied his fingers. So he was
paid three dollars and twenty-five cents
in cash for his own and his daughters
work upon their instruments every
evening, but only on condition that the
three dollars should go back again into
the till OF the restaurant in payment
for their meals. The twenty-five cents
he invariably gave to the waiter
ASTsiI tAiS iiiuoiCIiI3 anu iLLi, t1lS
diner, We're different men. Pizzi, the
musician, was at first shrinking,
timid old chap, who picked simple ac-
compartment, with knotted fingers, on
his guitar, rarely looking up and evil
IDENTIFY most unhappy. Pizzi, the
diner, was a grave seigneur. The
music was always finished before the
best of Moraldi's patrons left the res
taurant, and when it was finished
Pizzis humility was finished with it.
One of the best tables in the restau-
rant was always reserved for him, and
he led his daughter to it with all the
grace of an old-time foreign courtesy.
He sometimes limited that there was
noble blood in his veins. His selection
of viands was careful, and his manner
perfect. To see Pizzi cat spaghetti
that dish which, to the vulgar, is SO
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS poem.
Later, though, after some one started
the fashion of applause in the restau-
rant, the old mans manner changed
under the warming influence from hui
mility to that of gratified pride. Pizzi,
old, and not, now, too quick of pcrcep-
ton, believed that all the hard clap
ping with which the diners followed
each number was meant for him. 1t did
not occur to him that his little daugh-
ter, whom he had trained, could DO
more pleasing than her master, and
the pleasant scattering Of hands ceased
he invariably struggled infirmly from
4 I 1 : /
fully as he used to in the days when
the audiences of great theaters had
risen en- mdSSe to his music and time
after time demanded his presence be-
fore the curtain. 1t was no longer
Pizzi the musician, but Pizzi the great
artist who played in the restau-
rant. He even attempted a guitar solo
one night and never suspected that the
applause which followed was philan-
thropic.
All this pleased Guilia. Her devotion
to her father was her life almost. II
was for his sake that she played in tho
restaurant and at other places where
the reward was small. Guilia knew
that she could win money and fame
WIFI istE JiidiittftjAi L iit I1Ftb tsiilCCI,
IL Carmencita, had once offered her q
vast sum to play for her, but Guilia
knew that her father would be crushed
should she leave him, and she knew
and sympathetically understood why
the old artist did not realize the wan
ing of his own powers and the waxing
of hers. She could not bear to make
the truth plain to him by accepting
triumph in which he did not share.
Sometimes the desire to make money,
so that she could buy creature comforts
for his old age, was almost strong
enough to make her change her
resolution, but with a tactful reali-
zation that creature comforts were TO
him as nothing to his mental placidity
she always finally decided to let him
plod along in satisfied poverty which
she uncomplainingly shared.
But there was ono who was dissatis-
fed. That was Tom Johnson. Tom
Johnson was pa.nter-a poor painter
so far as money goes, rich painter so
far as ability and future prospects 60
His studio was in the same building in
which the Pizzis lived, and the delicate
featured, brown-skinned Italian girl
had become the ideal of his heart.
Pizzi liked him, too, which was for
tunate. From the lofty height of a
great artist in one line. he believed
that he saw in Tom the possibilities of
a great artist in another line, and en-
couragcd him with : patronage which
would have maddcncd the Englishman
had not his love for Cuilia been SO
broad as 70 cover u multitude Of things
Gnd blind his eyes to many annoyances.
The dclicaey which made Guilia permit
her father 70 live in poverty because
Sac thought comfort earned by other
fingers than his own would be distaste-
.fal to isiI1, Tom could not understand.
srhca he diDcd with them it angcred
asis,ss5 ilsvc Pizzi accept the applause
that belonged to GGilia, but She kept
him silent.
The cheerful etfcc. of the applause
at Moraldi's kept Pizzi in very pleas