After my patron's departure I worked for a while in the laboratory; and an hour before dinner I went for a stroll in the park, making, for no reason in particular, toward the principal entrance. As I neared it I heard voices in dispute, and on reaching the gates I found the lodge-keeper engaged in a somewhat warm altercation with an Italian organ-grinder and another fellow of the same kidney, who seemed to be his companion. The lodge-keepers had strict orders to exclude from the park all beggars without exception, and all and sundry who produced music by turning a handle. Real musicians, however, were freely admitted, and often generously rewarded. The lodge-keeper in question (an old fellow with a wooden leg) had not been able to make the two vagabonds in question understand this. They insisted on coming in, and the lodge-keeper said that if I had not appeared he verily believed they would have entered in spite of him. They seemed to know very little English; but as I knew a little Italian, which I eked out with a few significant gestures, I speedily enlightened them, and they sheered off, looking daggers, and muttering what sounded like curses. The man who carried the organ was of the usual type--short, thick-set, hairy, and unwashed. His companion, rather to my surprise, was just the reverse--tall, shapely, well set up, and comparatively well clad; and with his dark eyes, black mustache, broad-brimmed hat, and red tie loosely knotted round his brawny throat, he looked decidedly picturesque. On the following day, as I was going to the stables (which were a few hundred yards below the house) I found my picturesque Italian in the back garden, singing a barcarole to the accompaniment of a guitar. But as he had complied with the condition of which I had informed him, I made no objection. So far from that I gave him a shilling, and as the maids (who were greatly taken with his appearance) got up a collection for him and gave him a feed, he did not do badly. A few days later, while out riding, I called at the station for an evening paper, and there he was again, "touching his guitar," and singing something that sounded very sentimental. "That fellow is like a bad shilling," I said to one of the porters--"always turning up." "He is never away. I think he must have taken it into his head to live here." "What does he do?" "Oh, he just hangs about, and watches the trains, as if he had never seen any before. I suppose there are none in the country he comes from. Between whiles he sometimes plays on his banjo and sings a bit for us. I cannot quite make him out; but as he is very quiet and well-behaved, and never interferes with nobody, it is no business of mine." Neither was it any business of mine; so after buying my paper I dismissed the subject from my mind and rode on to Kingscote.