In Rose Garden Court there was more than one family that might be likened to an accordion, because of the facility with which it could be compressed or extended. The Scimmins household could occupy the three rooms it rented in the court, or it could get along with two, or even one if need be. The spare space was sub-let whenever opportunity offered, and here Langly found lodging that had at least the merit of cheapness. The policeman at the entrance of the court looked suspiciously after the new-comer, and resolved to keep an eye on him. The organist had a habit of muttering truculently to himself as he walked the streets, and his nervous hands were never a moment at rest, the long slim fingers playing imaginary keys or chords, inaudible outside of his own musical imagination. When the already suspicious policeman at the entrance of the court saw the musician come out, clawing the empty air with the two forefingers of either hand crooked like talons, a fearful frown on his brow, and an ominous muttering in his throat, the officer said to himself: “There goes a hanarchist, if ever there was one,” not knowing that the poor little man was merely pulling the stops of a mythical organ, immense in size and heavenly in tone. The police always looked askance at Langly when he moved into a new locality, until they learned that he was the organist at St. Martyrs-in-the-East. One night, shortly after he took the back room two flights up at No. 3, Langly came down the common stairway, and paused in amaze at the landing opposite Braunt’s door. He heard some one within, slowly and fearfully murdering Chopin’s _Funeral March_, part first. The sound made him writhe, and he crouched by the door, his fingers mechanically drumming against the panel, repressing with difficulty a desire to cry out against the profanation of a harmony that seemed sacred to him. The drone stopped suddenly, and next instant the door was jerked open, causing the amazed listener to stumble into the room, where, as it seemed to him, a giant pounced down, clutched his shoulders, and flung him in a heap on the floor by the opposite wall. Then, kicking the door shut, the giant, with fists clenched and face distorted with rage, towered over the prostrate man. “You miserable sneaking scoundrel!” cried Braunt. “So that’s why you took a room with the Scimminses--to ferret and spy on me. I’ve seen you crawling up these stairs, afraid to look any honest man in the face. Because I took no strike pay Gibbons wants to know how I live, does he? I’m up to his tricks. You’re Gibbons’s spy, and he has sent you to live with that other sneak, Scimmins. Scimmins himself was afraid, for he knows already the weight of my hand. Now,” continued Braunt, rolling up his sleeves, “I’ll serve you as I did Scimmins. I’ll throw you over the banisters, and you can report that to Gibbons, and tell him to come himself next time, and I’ll break every bone in his body.”