One day while he was sitting aimlessly before his piano there came a knock at his door, and in walked, to his startled confusion, his master, Raff, of whom MacDowell stood in unmitigated awe.

"The honor," he relates, "simply overwhelmed me.

He looked rather quizzically around at my untidy room, and said something about the English translation of his _Welt-Ende_ oratorio (I found out after, alas, that he had wanted me to copy it in his score for him; but with his inexplicable shyness he only hinted at it, and I on my side was too utterly and idiotically overpowered to catch his meaning); then he abruptly asked me what I had been writing.

I, scarcely realising what I was saying, stammered out that I had a concerto.

He walked out on the landing and turned back, telling me to bring it to him the next Sunday.