n
they have done in the essentials of the art--in the highest sense of
the term--of making violins. But we must get to work, there are lots
of repairs of all sorts for us to get through the next fortnight, and
as there is comparatively little anxious work about this job we will
get it out of hand!"

The violin is now subjected to another and final inspection before the
active treatment is commenced. "How about that wormhole, James, that
we were worrying over before the separation of the upper table?"
"That's just what I've been looking at, sir, and as it doesn't go more
than a quarter of an inch into the wood--I've tried it with this bit
of wire--the maker must have cut this bit of pine from a worm-eaten
log, perhaps because it was old and likely to give a good tone!" "There
you're wrong, James!" the chief interposes--he is rather inclined to
snub his assistant when that essentially practical man gives any
indication of a flight of fancy--"the 'worm' is no sign of age, I have
known it to affect wood that has been cut but a year before its discovery,
and do you think those old Italians were such fools as to make fiddles
that would be only fit to be heard when tried by their descendants two
hundred years after they died?" James collapses, and getting a basin
with some warm water, a cloth and a piece of sponge, proceeds to smear
the latter up and down and round the sides of the instrument. The sponge
and water soon show signs of the work in hand. "Very dirty, sir, hasn't
been washed for a hundred years, I should think! There's a ticket, too,
but I can't make out much of it. I'll wash it over a bit." He then begins
to try the deciphering, taking one letter at a time. "There's a large
H at one part, the next is A or O and then U or N, and next to it there's
R or D; its either London or perhaps its one of those we came across
the other day, Laurentius something." "It's neither one nor the other,"
his chief almost roars, while rapidly striding across the room to his
assistant, who hastily hands over the portion of the violin, glad to
leave the regions of speculation. "There's nothing about that fiddle
having any connection with any place but Cremona," and the chief bumps
down into a chair to further study the mysterious ticket. "You have
not improved that ticket by washing it, the date has gone and the
greater part of the print; you should never wash a ticket, that is how
the very large majority of even well preserved ones hav