be met with. It was a genuine Antonio Stradivari,
and nothing could enrage him more than when any one failed to render
due homage to this darling of his. However, knowing pretty well what
was going to happen, he put it back into its case with a smile.

"Just as he was taking the key out of the lock of his fiddle-case, the
Baron, who had left the room for a moment, came in, bearing in both
arms (as if it had been a babe going to be baptized) a violin-case,
covered with scarlet velvet, and bound with gold cords.

"'I wish to do you an honour, Haak,' he said; 'tonight you shall play
on my oldest, most precious violin. This is a genuine Granuelo. Your
Stradivarius, his pupil, is only a bungler in comparison with him.
Tartini would never put his fingers on any violin but a Granuelo. So
please to collect yourself, and pull yourself together, so that the
Granuelo may be pleased to allow itself to unfold all the gloriousness
which dwells within it.'

"The Baron opened the violin-case, and I beheld an instrument whose
build bore witness to its immense antiquity. Beside it lay a most
marvellous-looking bow, whose exaggerated curvature seemed to indicate
rather that it was intended for shooting arrows from than for bringing
tone out of violin strings. With solemn carefulness the Baron took the
instrument out of its case and handed it to my master, who received it
with equal solemnity.

"'I'm not going to give you the bow,' said the Baron, tapping my master
on the shoulder with a pleasant smile, 'you haven't the slightest idea
how to manage it; and that is why you will never, in all your life,
attain to a proper style of bowing.

"'This was the sort of bow,' continued the Baron, taking it from the
case, and contemplating it with a gleaming glance of inspiration,
'which the grand, immortal Tartini made use of; and now that he is
gone there are only two of his pupils left in the whole wide world who
were fortunate enough to possess themselves of the secret of his
magnificent, marrowy, toneful manner of bowing, which affects the whole
being of people, and can only be accomplished with a bow of this kind.
One of those pupils is Narbini, who is now an old man of seventy,
capable only of inward music; and the other, as I think, gentlemen, you
are aware, is myself. Consequently, I am now the sole individual in
whom the true art of violin-playing survives; and my zealous endeavours
will, I trust and believe, not fail to perpetuate tha