Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/131

Rh "It's got a trick of playing tunes all by itself, when there ain't no one there to play 'em."

"No one there to play them! Of course, you're joking."

"I ain't joking. I ain't a joking sort." (To do her justice, I am bound to own that she didn't look as though she were.) "The very first night it played a tune, and it's played the same tune every blessed night since it's been in the shop."

"The same tune—always the same? Would you know it if you heard it?"

"I ought to. I've heard it often enough, Lord knows; and I ain't over and above anxious to hear it again." "Is this it?"

Ernest whistled a little air. It was the same which we had heard being played as we were ascending the stairs. Quite an uncomfortable change took place in the lady's bearing. Hardly had Ernest whistled a couple of notes than, with a sort of groan, she shrank back against the wall.

"That's it! Stop it! It gives me creeps and crawlers!"

"Now, tell me, from what sort of person did you purchase the violin?"

"A little chap, about up to your shoulder—the queerest-looking little chap ever I see. He had long black hair, and big eyes—ah, as big as bull's-eye lanterns!—and that there wild, they made him look stark mad. He was that there thin—anybody could see he hadn't had a square meal for a month of Sundays. He says, 'What'll you give me for my fiddle?' I wondered if it was a swap that he was