Toscanini

Speranza

Feeling sure that Toscanini would welcome an evening at a musical play, Chotzinoff made up a party to dine and to go on to see Ethel Merman in her musical hit, "Panama Hattie".

And, indeed, the prospect of an evening at the theatre pleased Toscanini and he arrived for dinner in the gayest of moods.

Sitting opposite him at the table were Chotzinoff's nine-year old daughter Anne and his twelve-year old son Blair, who had been permitted to come downstaris so that they might carry through life the memory of having dined with Toscanini.

Throughout dinner, Anne never took her eyes off the Maestro.

Blair, however, was unimpressed.

Blain soon began to exhibit symptoms of ennuui; and, at one point, in the middle of an anecdote of the Maestro's childhood days at Parma, Blair took from his pocket two little magnets.

Blair laid one of the magnets on the table in front of him. Eventually they went to Toscanini.