‘You may rely upon me,’ said Christopher in his own dogged and sulky tones. ‘If I wanted to tell of it, I know nobody in London.’ ‘That was your theme, was it?’ said the host, throwing one leg over the other and nursing it with both hands. ‘Yes,’ said Christopher; ‘you played it very accurately, you must have a very fine memory.’ ‘I suppose I have,’ said the other, with a little laugh. ‘But it’s a wonderful thing.’ ‘Do you think so?’ asked Christopher, blushing with pleasure. ‘I do indeed,’ his new acquaintance answered. ‘Play something else of yours.’ There was a bed in one corner of the room, and on this he had laid the instrument and the bow when he came in. He arose now and proffered them to Christopher. Christopher took them from his outstretched hand and played. The other listened, nursing his leg again, and nodding at the fire, in time to the music. ‘You write better than you play,’ he said at length, with more candour than was altogether agreeable. ‘Not that your playing isn’t good, but it misses--just misses--the real grip--the real royal thing. Only one player in a million has it.’ ‘Do you think you have it?’ asked Christopher, not sneeringly, though the words might imply a sneer, but speaking because he was shy and felt bound to say something. ‘I?’ said the other, with a merry laugh. ‘O Lord no! A man can’t bring out more than there is in him. There’s no divine melody in _me_. Good spirits now and then, a bit of sentiment now and then, a dash more or less of the devil now and then--that’s all I’m equal to. If I could have written that gavotte you played a minute ago, I could knock sparks out of people with it. Here! lend me the fiddle.’ He played it through with the grave-faced merriment proper to it, and here and there with such a frolicking forth of sudden laughter and innocent fun as gave gravity the lie and made the pretence of it dearly droll. ‘That’s it,’ he said, looking up with naïve triumph when he had finished. Yes, that was it, Christopher confessed, as he took back the violin and bow and laid them on the table. ‘What brings a man who plays as you do, playing in the streets?’ he asked a little sulkily. ‘That eternal want of pence which vexes fiddlers,’ said the youngster ‘I lost an engagement a month ago. First violin at the Garrick. Rowed with the manager. Nothing else turned up. Must make money somehow.’ ‘What have you made to-night?’ Christopher asked. ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said a second later; ‘that is no business of mine, of course.’ ‘About seven or eight shillings,’ said the other, disregarding the withdrawal of the question. ‘And I won’t ask you,’ he went on, ‘what brings a man who writes like you living near the clouds in a street like this?’ ‘Are you an Englishman?’ asked Christopher.