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The story of the examination is rather amusing. Reutter gave the
little fellow a canon to sing at first sight. The boy went though
the thing triumphantly, and the delighted Reutter cried "Bravo!"
as he flung a handful of cherries into Haydn's cap. But there was
one point on which Reutter was not quite satisfied. "How is it,
my little man," he said, "that you cannot shake?" "How can you
expect me to shake," replied the enfant terrible, "when Herr
Frankh himself cannot shake?" The great man was immensely tickled
by the ready retort, and, drawing the child towards him, he
taught him how to make the vibrations in his throat required to
produce the ornament. The boy picked up the trick at once. It was
the final decision of his fate. Reutter saw that here was a
recruit worth having, and he lost no time in getting the parents'
sanction to carry him off to Vienna. In the father's case this
was easily managed, but the mother only yielded when it was
pointed out that her son's singing in the cathedral choir did not
necessarily mean the frustration of her hopes of seeing him made
a priest.
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