s
eyes were obscured by a pair of large spectacles of darkened glass,
and his coat collar was turned up to the tops of his ears. A
neglected-looking beard jutted out from the opening in the collar,
and not a feature but the man's nose was visible. The crowd had gone;
looking round, one could scarcely have suspected that the crowd had been
there at all a minute before.

'That was a curious theme you played last of all,' said Christopher.
'Was it your own?'

'No,' said the musician, chinking together the coppers in his felt hat
as a reminder of the more immediate business in hand.

'Whose was it?' asked Christopher, ignoring the hat.

'Don't know, I'm sure,' the musician answered shortly, and turned away.

There was nobody left to appeal to, so, putting his fiddle and bow under
his arm, he emptied the coppers into his trousers' pockets, and, putting
on his hat, made away in the direction of King's Cross. Christopher
followed at a little distance, wonder-stricken still, and half disposed
to return to the charge again. The musician, reaching the corner of
Gray's Inn Road, turned. This was Christopher's homeward way, and he
followed. By-and-by the fiddler made a turn to the right. This was still
Christopher's homeward way, and still he followed. By-and-by the man
stopped before a door and produced a latch-key. The house before which
he stood was that in which Christopher lodged. He laid a hand upon the
fiddler's shoulder.

'Do you live here?' he said.

'What has that to do with you?' retorted the fiddler.

'That was my theme you played,' said Christopher; 'and if you live here,
I know how you got hold of it. You have heard me play it.'

'You live on the third floor?' said the other in a changed tone.

'Yes,' said Christopher.

'I'm in the attics, worse luck to me,' said the street player. 'Come
into my room, if you don't mind.'

He opened the door and went upstairs in the darkness, with the assured
step of custom. Christopher, less used to the house, blundered slowly
upwards after him.

'Wait a minute,' said the occupant of the attic, 'and I'll get a light.'

There was a little pause, and then came the splutter of a match. The
pale glow of a single candle lit the room dimly. Christopher jumped
at the sight of a third man in the room. No! There were but two people
there. But where, then, was the man who had led him hither? Here before
him was a merry-looking youngster of perhaps two-and-twenty, with a
light