“I bow my head. Only, perhaps you will make a single concession. As I have said, I am the possessor of a fiddle. It is one I picked up in Rome. I bought it of a seedy Italian nobleman; and he claimed it for a rare one—a Stradivari, in fact. I’m no judge of such things, and most likely was taken in. Will you look at it and give me your opinion?” “Oh, yes, I have no objection to doing that,” I said, glad to prove myself not altogether churlish. “Here it is,” he continued, putting the violin into my hands. It was a beautiful instrument from an optical standpoint. What remained of the varnish was ruddy and crystalline, and as smooth as amber. The curves were exquisite. It was also either genuinely old or a marvelous imitation. Its interior was dark and dirty—an excellent condition. I could descry no label there—another favorable sign. Was it indeed a Stradivari? Formerly it had been an ambition of mine to play upon a Stradivari; an ambition which I had never had a chance to gratify, because among the dozen so-called Stradivaris that I had come upon here and there, I had found not one but betrayed its fraudulent origin from the instant the bow was drawn across the strings. Something of the old feeling revived in me as I held this instrument in my hands, and before I had thought, my finger mechanically picked the A string. The clear, bell-like tone that responded, caused me to start. I had never heard such a tone as this produced before by the mere picking of a string. “I believe you have a treasure here,” I exclaimed. “I’m not connoisseur enough to say whether it is a Stradivari; but whoever its maker was, it’s a superb instrument.” “Do you really think so?” cried Merivale. “Try it with the bow.” He thrust the bow upon me. Without allowing myself time to hesitate, I touched the bow to the strings: the result was a voice from heaven, so clear, so broad, so sweet, of such magnetic quality, that it actually frightened me, made my heart palpitate, summoned a myriad dead emotions back to life. And yet I felt an irresistible temptation to continue, to push the experiment at least a trifle further. “Tune it up,” said Merivale. I complied. That was the final stroke. After I had drawn the bow for a second time across the cat-gut, there was no resisting. I lost possession of myself: ere I knew it, I was pouring my life out through the wonderful voice of the Stradivari.