Pleasing Paderewski.

A great pianist's piano-stool is as valuable and important to him as the Golden Stool was to the King of Ashanti (says the “Lyttelton Times,” Christchurch). There was some consternation amongst Mr. Paderewski's company yesterday, when it was found that his stool had not come through from Lyttelton with the pianos, but the Railway Department's officers responded readily to the S. O. S. call and tension was relieved when the stool was delivered safely at the Theatre Royal.

The burden of this particular trouble fell on the shoulders of Mr. E. Gordon Joubert. In charge of Mr. Paderewski's pianos and of everything connected with them, he bears a responsibility of no light weight. An exacting and worrying job is his, with many vexations, and his statement last night that he wished to compliment the New Zealand Railway Department on its handling of the precious instruments may be accepted by the Department as a compliment indeed. He was surprised to find the pianos ready for him at the Theatre Royal yesterday at 10 a.m. “I say it is marvellous,” was his comment.

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