overty, he steadfastly resisted.

Doctor Selle tells me that he distinctly remembers seeing Dodd cut
out a bow from the rough plank with a curiously constructed double
saw.

This is very remarkable as none of the bow makers now working know of
such a tool, or can conceive the possibility of using one. Whether
this may have any connexion with the much talked of "secret," it is
impossible to say. It is probably another of those points in the
history of the bow that seem doomed to remain shrouded in mystery.

Doctor Selle remembers seeing Dodd walking home many times with his
pockets full of oyster shells begged from various stalls.

From these he used to cut out the pearl for the slides and
ornamentation on his bows. This accounts for the characteristic
plainness of these features of his work. He was often at a loss for
silver for the mountings, and the Doctor says it was highly diverting
to him when a boy to hear the old housekeeper soundly rating Dodd for
melting down _another_ of her metal spoons.

One great drawback to Dodd's success was his partiality for the
"flowing bowl." As the Doctor epigramatically expressed it in the
notes he supplied to A. Vidal, "he was very regular in his
irregularities." Vidal's translation at this point is worthy of note.
One is surprised to find that Dodd would pay four daily visits to
"les voitures et chevaux publics"--"the public carriages and horses."

The mind fails to grasp the Gallic conception of the eccentric
Englishman whose nationally characteristic love of horseflesh should
cause him so frequently to inspect the omnibus of the period.

One shudders to think what Vidal would have done if Dodd's favourite
house of call had been the Star and Garter instead of the _Coach and
Horses_!

His last years were spent in great poverty; in fact, he subsisted
almost entirely on the charity of a few violinists and amateurs who
appreciated his genius. He ultimately died of bronchitis in the
Infirmary of Richmond Workhouse, and was buried at Kew; not, as has
been elsewhere stated, at Richmond.

I do not think a man of such a taciturn, secretive disposition, would
have been likely readily to adopt the methods and copy the work of
another maker. As has been shown by the reproductions of bows I have
given so far, there has been apparent a converging tendency to the
modern design of head all through. The Tourte head is undoubtedly the
most beautiful, the most perfect in every way. His w