“I thank you for your kindly thought,” he said; “but I do not at present see how I am to raise money to repay you. I have always kept out of debt, and I am too old to work.” “Oh, never mind, never mind! Don't trouble yourself about that,” began the other, but a look of such determination came back to the old man's face that he thought it unwise to press the matter further, and continued, “Well, we'll speak of that some other time. You'll always find me here and glad to see you. Can you manage to get home all right? Shall one of my clerks go with you?” But the Professor strenuously refused all offers of help, so Mr. Surtees had to be contented with seeing his aged client downstairs himself. And he stood for a moment watching his feeble progress down the narrow court that led into busy Broad Street. “Poor old chap!” he said to himself. “No wonder he is hard hit if that was his whole living. I wonder why he always would keep it in those South American stocks?” And he returned to his own room, feeling dissatisfied with everything in general and the money market in particular. Professor Crowitzski got back to his little room in Green Street rather before one. He sat down in his old chair near the fireplace, leaned back, and closed his eyes with a sense of weariness and despair that made him half wish the end might come then and there. He was utterly crushed by the weight of his misfortune, and he felt quite unable to think of any means by which he might be able to live out the small remnant of his life outside the workhouse. He had not taken off his old Inverness cloak, and as he put his hands into the deep pockets to try to get them a little warm he felt a folded sheet of paper. He drew it out mechanically and looked at it absently; it was the programme for the next Monday's concert. Instantly his whole mental attitude changed. Music, the ruling passion and great love of his whole life, asserted itself once more. Cold, hunger, the need of money, the workhouse, and starvation, all faded from his mind, and he was in the world of glorious sound.