n't a hammer-chewer in a county as
plays like Reuben. Give Mr. Gold a chair, Ruth. I should like to hear
what might ha' made a man throw it over as had iver got as far."

"I heard Paganini," the old man answered. "I was up in London rather
better than six-and-twenty year ago, and I heard Paganini."

"Well?" asked Fuller.

"That's all the story," said the old man, seating himself in the chair
the girl had brought him. "I never cared to touch a bow again."

"I don't seem to follow you, Mr. Gold."

"I have never been a wine-drinker," said Gold, "but I may speak of wine
to make clear my mean-in'. If you had been drinkin' a wonderful fine
glass of port or sherry wine, you wouldn't try to take the taste out of
your mouth with varjuice."

"I've tasted both," said the 'cello-player, "but they niver sp'iled my
mouth for a glass of honest beer."

"I can listen to middlin'-class music now," said Gold, "and find a
pleasure in it. But for a time I could not bring myself to take any sort
of joy in music. You think it foolish? Well, perhaps it was. I am not
careful to defend it, gentlemen, and it may happen that I might not if I
tried. But that was how I came to give up the fiddle. He was a wonder
of the world, was Paganini. He was no more like a common man than his
fiddlin' was like common fiddlin'. There was things he played that made
the blood run cold all down the back, and laid a sort of terror on you."

"I felt like that at the 'Hallelujah' first time I heerd it," said
Isaiah. "Band an' chorus of a hundred. It was when they opened the big
Wesley Chapel at Barfield twenty 'ear ago."

"We'll tek a turn at Haydn now, lads," said the host, genially.

"I'm sorry to break the party up so soon," Reuben answered, "but I
must go. There are people come to tea at father's, and I was blamed for
coming away at all. I promised to get back early and give them a tune
or two." He arose, and, taking his violin-case from the grass, wiped it
carefully all over with his pocket-handkerchief. "I was bade to ask you,
sir, if Miss Ruth might come and pass an hour or two. My mother would be
particularly pleased to see her, I was to say."

The young fellow was blushing fierily as he spoke, but no one noticed
this except the girl.

"Go up, my gell, and spend an hour or two," said her father. "Reuben 'll
squire thee home again."

"Wait while I put on my bonnet," she said, as she ran past Reuben
into the house. Reuben blushed a little deeper y