the little man, vastly puzzled, his voice shrill with
excitement. He dodged about in the depths of his big leather chair, as
though movement might bring explanation.

Mr. Skale watched him calmly. "I want to get the vibrations of your
voice, and then see what pattern they produce in the sand," he said.

"Oh, in the sand, yes; quite so," replied the secretary. He remembered
how the vibrations of an elastic membrane can throw dry sand, loosely
scattered upon its surface, into various floral and geometrical figures.
Chladni's figures, he seemed to remember, they were called after their
discoverer. But Mr. Skale's purpose in the main, of course, escaped him.

"You don't object?"

"On the contrary, I am greatly interested." He stood up on the mat beside
his employer.

"I wish to make _quite_ sure," the clergyman added gravely, "that your
voice, your note, is what I think it is--accurately in harmony with
mine and Miriam's and Mrs. Mawle's. The pattern it makes will help to
prove this."

The secretary bowed in perplexed silence, while Mr. Skale crossed the
room and took a violin from its case. The golden varnish of its ribs and
back gleamed in the lamplight, and when the clergyman drew the bow across
the strings to tune it, smooth, mellow sounds, soft and resonant as
bells, filled the room. Evidently he knew how to handle the instrument.
The notes died away in a murmur.

"A Guarnerius," he explained, "and a perfect pedigree specimen; it has
the most sensitive structure imaginable, and carries vibrations almost
like a human nerve. For instance, while I speak," he added, laying the
violin upon his companion's hand, "you will feel the vibrations of my
voice run through the wood into your palm."

"I do," said Spinrobin. It trembled like a living thing.

"Now," continued Mr. Skale, after a pause, "what I first want is to
receive the vibrations of your own voice in the same way--into my very
pulses. Kindly read aloud steadily while I hold it. Stop reading when I
make a sign. I'll nod, so that the vibrations of my voice won't
interfere." And he handed a notebook to him with quotations entered
neatly in his own handwriting, selected evidently with a purpose, and all
dealing with sound, music, as organized sound, and names. Spinrobin read
aloud; the first quotation from Meredith he recognized, but the others,
and the last one, discussing names, were new to him:--

"But _listen in the thought_; so may there come
Conception