"I know _that_, Tom," said David, coloring deeply, "but--" "Well, then, what _are_ you glad for?" "I don't think I'm so _very_ glad, Tom," replied David, sorrowfully. But Tom had taken up the bow and was rubbing the resin on it. He used a great deal of resin in his playing, and would often proudly call David's attention to how much of it would settle as a white dust under the bridge. David was too well used to Tom's rebuffs to mind them long, and as he now looked on at this resining process, the sunlight came back into his face. "Please let me try it once, Tom--just _once_." Experience had long ago taught him that this was asking too much of Tom; but with the new hope that the violin might now soon become his, his desire to handle it was ungovernable. "Now look here, David," replied Tom, with a great show of kindness in his manner, "I'd let you try it once, but you'd spoil the tone. It's taken me a long time to get a good tone into this fiddle, and you'd take it all out the very first whack. As soon as you learn to get a good tone out of it, I'll let you play on it. Don't you _know_ you'd spoil it, if I was to let you try it _now_?" he added, suddenly wheeling with tremendous energy upon his timid petitioner. "I'm afraid I would, Tom," replied David, with a voice full of anguish. "But just listen to me," said Tom; and taking up the violin, he rendered the opening passage of "O Thou Fount of every Blessing!" Scarcely had he finished when a customer entered the shop, and he hurried to the front, leaving the violin and the bow on the chair that he had quitted. No sooner was he gone than the little figure slipped noiselessly from its perch, and hobbling quickly to the chair on which the violin lay, stood beside it in silent love. Touch it he durst not; but his sensitive, delicate hands passed tremblingly over it, and his eyes dwelt upon it with unspeakable longing. Then, with a sigh, he turned away, and hastened to the front of the shop. Tom had already dismissed his customer, and was standing in the door, looking down the street in the direction of the Kentucky Hotel, where a small crowd had collected around the entrance of the museum. As David stepped out upon the sidewalk, it was the sight of this crowd that recalled him to a new sorrow. "Tom," he cried, with longing, "are you going to see the wax figures?" "Of course I'm going," he replied, carelessly. "We're all going." "When, Tom?" asked David, with breathless interest. "Whenever we want to, of course," replied Tom. "I'm not going just once; I'm going as often as I like." "Why don't you go now, Tom? It's so hot--they might melt." This startling view of the case was not without its effect on Tom, although a suggestion from such a source was not to be respected. He merely threw his eyes up towards the heavens and said, sturdily: "You ninny! they'll not melt. Don't you see it's going to rain and turn cooler?"