Apropos of Paganini, my father told me, when he conducted Paganini's concert at Mainz, which was given at the theatre there, he invited my father to dinner before the concert. At dinner he drank too much champagne, and after almost every piece he played he had to retire behind the scenes and be violently ill how he could have played under the circumstances, feeling so uncomfortable, is a marvel to me, as it was also to my father, who always spoke of him with the highest praise and admiration.