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One thing leads to another. Reutter, it is obvious, did not like
Haydn, and any opportunity of playing toady to the empress was
too good to be lost. Unfortunately Haydn himself provided the
opportunity. Having become possessed of a new pair of scissors,
he was itching to try their quality. The pig-tail of the
chorister sitting before him offered an irresistible attraction;
one snip and lo! the plaited hair lay at his feet. Discipline
must be maintained; and Reutter sentenced the culprit to be caned
on the hand. This was too great an indignity for poor Joseph, by
this time a youth of seventeen--old enough, one would have
thought, to have forsworn such boyish mischief. He declared that
he would rather leave the cathedral service than submit. "You
shall certainly leave," retorted the Capellmeister, "but you must
be caned first." And so, having received his caning, Haydn was
sent adrift on the streets of Vienna, a broken-voiced chorister,
without a coin in his pocket, and with only poverty staring him
in the face. This was in November 1749.
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