So it came to pass that once, aged seven, Karl had the earache. “Goodness me!” cries the experienced matron, “that is nothing to cause domestic flutterings. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in a teaspoonful of hot water, or, in severe attacks, a few drops of laudanum on cotton-wool, will deaden the pain and induce sleep.” Yes, madam, but if your little Tom, Dick, or Harry remarked that “the music was doing it,” and, when pressed for details, began to explain that some one was playing a flute, thus--whereupon Karl softly hummed part of the obligato to the nightingale song from the “Marriage of Jeannette”--if, moreover, your budding genius went on: “There is a lady singing now. Listen: Au bord du chemin qui passe ma porte Fleurit un bel aubépin, un bel aubépin....” and you knew quite well that the Commissioner’s niece, helped by a love-sick subaltern who fluted, was probably singing that identical song in a house over a mile distant, what would you do? Send for the doctor, of course. The doctor came, a hard-headed Scot--they thrive in India, those Scotsmen--and heard the story. At first he was inclined to place a mother’s vagaries firmly on one side, but, when a _chuprassi_ (messenger) brought a reply to Mrs. Grier’s note, and he read what the Commissioner’s niece had written, he stroked his long nose silently. For this was the answer: “Yes, Mr. Browne was here for luncheon. About two o’clock he ran through the ‘Rossignol’ song with me, first without the voice, afterwards with all the frills. But what on earth made you guess it? Mr. Browne is so amazed that he is staying to tea. _Do_ come and tell us all about it.” “And ye say ye mentioned the chune yerself, Mrs. Grier?” said he meditatively. “Yes, indeed. I heard Miss Nicholls sing it at the Gloucesters’ concert and Karl was not there. What can it all mean, doctor?” “I wish I could read that riddle. Ye would see all the letters of the alphabet afther me name. But trouble not yer head about Karl, Mrs. Grier. A slight discharge is beginning, and that brings instant relief.” He sought Grier in the big drying-room of the tea factory. “That boy of yours is a pheenomenon,” he said. “The sensory zone of his brain is, I should imagine, of remarkable size and unique capacity. With care, and ordinary luck, he should grow into a marvelous man. But yer wife must not fret if he puzzles her at times. He has the digestion of an ostrich, and the stamina of a young bull.” “Is there any way of accounting for his queer faculties?” asked the planter.