“You’re the first person that’s called me Elizabetta since I was christened,” remarked the stenographer calmly, “but even that doesn’t change the subject so far as I am concerned. Mr. Dorn----” “This tea tastes like logwood,” interrupted the girl maliciously, and Lizzy was sufficiently human to be pained. “Did you hear old Mackenzie last night?” she asked, and when Lois shook her head: “He was playing that dreamy bit from the _Tales of Hoggenheim_--_Hoffmann_ is it? All these Jewish names are the same to me. I can’t understand a Scotsman playing on a fiddle; I thought they only played bagpipes.” “He plays beautifully,” said Lois. “Sometimes, but only rarely, the music comes into my dreams.” Lizzy snorted. “The middle of the night’s no time to play anything,” she said emphatically. “He may be our landlord, but we’re entitled to sleep. And he’s crazy, anyway.” “It is a nice kind of craziness,” soothed Lois, “and he’s a dear old man.” Lizzy sniffed. “There’s a time for everything,” she said vaguely, and, getting up, took a third cup and saucer from the dresser, banged it on the table, filled it with tea and splashed milk recklessly into the dark brown liquid. “It’s your turn to take it down to him,” she said, “and you might drop a hint to him that the only kind of foreign music I like is ‘Night Time in Italy.’” It was their practice every morning to take a cup of tea down to the old man who occupied the floor below, and who, in addition to being their landlord, had been a very good friend to the two girls. The rent they paid, remembering the central position which the house occupied and the popularity of this quarter of London with foreigners who were willing to pay almost any figure for accommodation in the Italian quarter, was microscopic. Lois carried the cup down the stairs and knocked at one of the two doors on the next landing. There was the sound of shuffling feet on the bare floor, the door opened, and Rab Mackenzie beamed benevolently over his horn-rimmed spectacles at the fair apparition. “Thank you, thank you very much, Miss Reddle,” he said eagerly, as he took the cup from her hand. “Will you no’ walk round? I’ve got my old fiddle back. Did I disturb you last night?” “No, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you,” said Lois, as he put the cup on the well-scrubbed top of the bare table. The room, scrupulously clean, and furnished only with essentials, was an appropriate setting for the little old man in his baggy trousers, his scarlet slippers and black velvet coat. The clean-shaven face was lined and furrowed, but the pale blue eyes that showed beneath the shaggy eyebrows were alive. He took up the violin which lay on the sideboard with a gentle, tender touch.