osty air.

The sick man started, and made as if to raise himself on his elbow,
but quickly sank back again--perhaps from weakness, perhaps because
he caught the Doctor's eye and the Doctor's reassuring nod. While he
lay back and listened, a faint flush crept into his face, as though
the blood ran quicker in his weak limbs; and his blue eyes took a new
light altogether.

"That's the tune, hey?" the Doctor asked.

"That's the tune."

"Dismal, ain't it?"

"Ay, it's that." His fingers were beating time on the counterpane.

"That's our new bandmaster. He's got to teach it to the rest, and
you've got to hold out till they pick it up. Whew! I'd no idea music
could be so dismal."

"Hush 'ee, Doctor, do! till he've a-done. 'Tis like rain on
blossom." The last notes fell. "Go you down, Doctor, and say my
duty and will he please play it over once more, and Fugler'll gi'e
'em a run for their money."

The Doctor went back to the Town Hall and delivered this _encore_,
and M. Trinquier played his solo again; and in the middle of it Mr.
Fugler dropped off into an easy sleep.

After this the musicians met every evening, Sundays and weekdays, and
by the third evening the Doctor was able to predict with confidence
that Fugler would last out. Indeed, the patient was strong enough to
be propped up into a sitting posture during the hour of practice, and
not only listened with pleasure to the concerted piece, but beat time
with his fingers while each separate instrument went over its part,
delivering, at the close of each performance, his opinion of it to
Mrs. Fugler or the Doctor: "Tripconey's breath's failin'. He don't
do no sort o' justice by that sarpint." Or: "There's Uncle Issy
agen! He always do come to grief juss there! I reckon a man of
sixty-odd ought to give up the bass-viol. He ha'n't got the
agility."

On the fifth evening Mrs. Fugler was sent across to the Town Hall to
ask why the triangle had as yet no share in the performance, and to
suggest that William Henry Phippin's eldest boy, Archelaus, played
that instrument "to the life." M. Trinquier replied that it was
unusual to seek the aid of the triangle in rendering the Dead March
in _Saul_. Mr. Fugler sent back word that, "if you came to _that_,
the whole thing was unusual, from start to finish." To this M.
Trinquier discovered no answer; and the triangle was included, to the
extreme delight of Archelaus Phippin, whose young life had been
clouded