sic. But theer's no room i'
the world for th' old-fangled an' the newfangled. One nail drives out
another. But I've been thinking thee mightst find a thing or two herein
as would prove of value, and it's yours if you see fit to take it away."

"Why, it's a library," said Reuben. "You are very good, uncle, but--"

"Tek it, lad, tek it, if you'd like it, and make no words. And if it
shouldn't turn out to have been worth the carrying you can let th' old
chap think it was--eh?"

"Worth the carrying?" said Reuben, with a half-embarrassed little laugh.
"I'm pretty sure you had no rubbish on your shelves, uncle." He began to
turn over the leaves of the topmost book. "'_Etudes?_" he read, "'_pour
deux violins, par_ Joseph Manzini.' This looks good. Who was Joseph
Manzini? I never heard of him."

"Manzini?" asked the old man, with a curious eagerness--"Manzini." His
voice changed altogether, and fell into a dreamy and retrospective tone.
He laid a hand upon the open pages, and smoothed them with a touch which
looked like a caress.

"Who was he?" asked Reuben. "Did you know him?"

"No, lad," returned the old man, coming out of his dream, and smiling
as he spoke, "I never knew him. What should bring me to know a German
musician as was great in his own day?"

"I thought you spoke as if you knew him," said Reuben.

"Hast a quick ear," said Ezra, "and a searching fancy. No, lad, no; I
never knew him. But that was the last man I ever handled bow and fiddle
for. I left that open" (he tapped the book with his fingers and then
closed it as he spoke)--"I left that open on my table when I was called
away on business to London. I found it open when I came home again, and
I closed it, for I never touched a bow again. I'd heard Paganini in the
mean time. Me and 'Saiah Eld tried that through together, and since then
I've never drawn a note out o' catgut."

"I could never altogether understand it, uncle," said Reuben. "What
could the man's playing have been like?"

"What was it like?" returned the older man. "What is theer as it wa'n't
like? I couldn't tell thee, lad--I couldn't tell thee. It was like a
lost soul a-wailing i' the pit. It was like an angel a-sing-ing afore
the Lord. It was like that passage i' the Book o' Job, where 'tis said
as 'twas the dead o' night when deep sleep falleth upon men, and a
vision passed afore his face, and the hair of his flesh stood up. It
was like the winter tempest i' the trees, and a little broo