"_What?_" gasped Captain Tobias. "_Which?_"--and, with that, speech failed him. The pair had come to the footbridge and were in the act of crossing it, when they became aware that the stream beneath them differed from all streams in their experience. It was not rippling like other streams; it was not murmuring; it was tinkling out a gay little operatic tune! To be more precise, it was rendering the waltz-tune in "Faust," an opera by the late M. Gounod. Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken knew nothing of "Faust" or of its composer. But they could recognise a tune. "_Which?_" repeated Tobias gasping, holding by the handrail of the bridge. "You or me? Or both, perhaps?" "Two glasses o' port wine only, 'Bias . . . and you _saw_ me at the station. I'd run all the way too. . . . Besides, _you_ hear it." Relief, of a sudden, broke over Captain Cai's face. "It's the box!" he cried. With that he was aware of the sound of a merry laugh behind him--a feminine laugh, too, not less musical than the melody still tinkling at his feet. He turned about and confronted Mrs Bosenna as she stepped forth from her hiding in the bushes, her maid Dinah in attendance close behind her. "Good afternoon again, Captain Hocken! And is this Captain Hunken? . . . It was polite of you--polite indeed--to bring him so soon." She held out a hand to Tobias, who, to take it, was forced to relinquish for a moment his clutch on the rail. "Servant, ma'am," said he in a gruff unnatural voice, and fell back on his support. She laughed again merrily. "And you'll forgive me for making you welcome with musical honours? That was a sudden notion of Dinah's. She spied you coming up the road, and--Dinah, can you manage to stop that silly tune?" "I'll try, mistress." Dinah stooped, groped amid the grasses, and produced the musical box from its lair. "You can," stammered Captain Cai, as if repeating a formula, "turn it off--at any time--by means of a back-handed switch." "It's yours, then!" Mrs Bosenna clapped her hands together as she turned on him. "It's mine," confessed Captain Cai. "The question might occur to you, ma'am--" "It has. Oh, it _has!_" She rippled with laughter. "You should have seen Dinah's face when she came upon it!" "Caius," said Captain Hunken, interrupting her mirth as with a stroke tolled on a bell, "would ye mind pinching me?" "Not at all, 'Bias--if you'll tell me where." "Anywheres. Only rememberin' we're in the presence o' ladies." "It's _perfectly_ simple," said Captain Cai, "if you'll only let me explain! You see, the thing's what you might call a testimonial. I picked it up, comin' through the town to-day." "A testimonial? How interesting!" murmured Mrs Bosenna. "From my late crew, ma'am. As I was sayin', on my way through the town to call on you, ma'am, I was taken on the hop, so to speak, an' made the recipient--" "What for?" demanded 'Bias. He was breathing hard.