Well, it was in the winter of 1868 that [Eugen] Franck invited me to come and pay him a little visit, holding out to me, as a special inducement, the pleasure of meeting a young Englishman who, with his mother and two charming sisters, was spending the year in Berlin for the purpose of studying the piano under Carl Tausig. Needless to say I accepted with alacrity. The meeting between the young Englishman and me, at a supper-party arranged for the occasion by our mutual friend, developed in the course of the evening into something like an Olympic contest. Evidently bent on doing credit to his master, the young Englishman, a striking looking, handsome boy of sixteen, with finely-cut features and very pleasant manners, played wonderfully well, thus spurring me on to do my best when my turn came. So we went on, actually for hours, he playing and I singing, to the great delight of our host, who, equally interested in us both, confessed to being baffled as to which of us in his opinion had the greater talent, until, at the end of a most enjoyable evening, he had to be satisfied with declaring that both Frederic Cowen-- for that was the boy's name-- and I had the chance of a brilliant future before us : a future which, alas, at the time I am writing, has turned into a past, though, I am sure, one we neither of us two old friends need be ashamed of.