made a slight dent in the
parquet floor.

The younger of the two men sat well forward, elbows on knees, eyes
alight with excitement, intently gazing at the 'cello.

The other lay back in his chair, his thin sensitive fingers carefully
placed tip to tip, his deep-set eyes scrutinising his companion. When he
spoke his voice was calm and deliberate, his manner exceedingly quiet.
His method of conversation was of the kind which drew out the full
confidence of others, while at the same time carefully insinuating,
rather than frankly expressing, ideas of his own.

"What a rum fellow you must be, West, to pay a hundred and fifty pounds
for an instrument you have no notion of playing. Is it destined to be
kept under lock and key in a glass case?"

"Certainly not," said Ronald West. "I shall be able to play it when I
try; and I shall try as soon as I get home."

"Give us a sample here."

"No, not here. I particularly wish to play it first with Helen, in the
room where I told her a 'cello was the instrument I had always wanted.
Oh, I say, isn't it a beauty! Look at those curves, and that wonderful
polish, like the richest brown of the very darkest horse-chestnut you
ever saw in a bursting bur! See how the silver strings shine in the
firelight, against the black ebony of the finger-board! It was made at
Prague, and it is a hundred and fifty years old. I call it the Infant of
Prague."

"Why the 'Infant'?"

"Because you have to be so careful not to bump its head as you carry it
about. Also, isn't there a verse somewhere, about an Infant of Days who
was a hundred years old, and young at that? Helen will love the Infant.
She will polish it with a silk handkerchief, and make a bed for it on
the sofa! I shan't write to her about it. I shall bring it home as a
surprise."

He took his eyes from the 'cello and looked across at Helen's cousin;
but Aubrey Treherne instantly shifted his gaze to the unconscious
Infant.

"Tell me how you came across it. There is no doubt you have been
fortunate enough to pick up an instrument of extraordinary value and
beauty."

"Ah, you realise that?" cried Ronald. "Good! Well, you shall hear
exactly what happened. I arrived here early this morning, put up at a
hotel, and sallied out to interview the publishers. I had a mass of
'copy' to show them, because I have been writing incessantly the whole
way home. Curiously enough, since I left Africa, I have scarcely needed
any sleep. Snatches of ha