“It’s of no consequence that you can’t play,” insisted the old gentleman. “Just try the tone. Here, this way,” added he, putting the violin under the Don’s chin. It may seem strange that I, a bachelor, should be so fond of illustrating my scenes by means of babies; but as the whole frame-work and cast of this story compels me to marry at some future day, I may be allowed to say that the Don held the violin just as I have seen young fellows hold an infant that had been thrust into their arms by some mischievous young girl. Afraid to refuse to take it lest the mother be hurt, they are in momentary terror lest it fall. “There! So!” exclaimed the old gentleman, adjusting the instrument. While every one else smiled at the scene, Charley was, strangely enough, almost convulsed with a noiseless chuckle that brought the tears into his eyes. “The old boy feels his toddy,” thought I. The Don began to scrape dismally. “Ah, don’t hold the bow so much in the middle!—So!—That’s better!—Now pull away! Keep the bow straight!—There, that’s right! So!—” Charley rocked in his seat. “Now, up! Down! Up! Down! Up! Very good! Down! Up! Bow straight!—” Charley leaped from his chair and held his sides. Well, even Cato occasionally moistened his clay. “So! Better still! Excellent! Upon my word, you are an apt scholar!” Charley dropped into his seat, threw back his head, and shut his eyes. The Don paused, smiling. “What a tone!” exclaimed my grandfather. “Oh!” cried he with intense earnestness, “if—if I could but hear, once again, an artist play upon that violin!” The smile passed from the Unknown’s face. A strange look came into his eyes, as though his thoughts were far away. His chin relaxed its hold upon the violin and pressed upon his breast. His right arm slowly descended till the tip of the bow almost touched the floor; and there he stood, his eyes fixed upon the ground. A stillness overspread the company. No one moved a muscle save Charley. He, with an odd smile in his eyes, softly drew from his pocket a small pen-knife and held it in his left hand, with the nail of his right thumb in the notch of the blade. Slowly, and as if unconsciously to himself, the Don’s right arm began to move. The violin rose, somehow, till it found its way under his chin. Charley opened his knife. There were signs in the Unknown’s countenance of a sharp but momentary struggle, when his right arm suddenly sprang from its pendent position, and the wrist, arched like the neck of an Arab courser, stood, for a second, poised above the bridge. Charley passed the blade of his knife through the threads that bound the bandage about his finger, and the linen rag fell to the floor; and he rose and folded his arms across his breast. The bow descended upon the G string. The stranger gave one of those quick up-strokes with the lowest inch of the horse-hair, followed by a down-stroke of the whole length of the bow. CHAPTER XXX.