play it first with Helen, in the room where I told her a 'cello was the instrument I had always wanted. Oh, I say, isn't it a beauty! Look at those curves, and that wonderful polish, like the richest brown of the very darkest horse-chestnut you ever saw in a bursting bur! See how the silver strings shine in the firelight, against the black ebony of the finger-board! It was made at Prague, and it is a hundred and fifty years old. I call it the Infant of Prague."

"Why the 'Infant'?"

"Because you have to be so careful not to bump its head as you carry it about. Also, isn't there a verse somewhere, about an Infant of Days who was a hundred years old, and young at that? Helen will love the Infant. She will polish it with a silk handkerchief, and make a bed for it on the sofa! I shan't write to her about it. I shall bring it home as a surprise."

He took his eyes from the 'cello and looked across at Helen's cousin; but Aubrey Treherne instantly shifted his gaze to the unconscious Infant.

"Tell me how you came across it. There is no doubt you have been fortunate enough to pick up an instrument of extraordinary value and beauty."

"Ah, you realise that?" cried Ronald. "Good! Well, you shall hear exactly what happened. I arrived here early this morning, put up at a hotel, and sallied out to interview the publishers. I had a mass of 'copy' to show them, because I have been writing incessantly the whole way home. Curiously enough, since I left Africa, I have scarcely needed any sleep. Snatches of half an hour seem all I require. It is convenient when one has a vast amount of work to get through in a short space of time."

"Very convenient. Just the reverse of the sleeping sickness."

"Rather! I was never fitter in my life—as I told Dick Cameron."

Aubrey Treherne glanced at the bright burning eyes and flushed face—the feverish blood showing, even through the tan of Africa.

"Yes, you look jolly fit," he said. "Who is Dick Cameron?"

"A great chum of mine. We met, as boys in Edinburgh, and were at school together. He is the son of Colonel Cameron of Transvaal fame, killed while leading a charge. Dick has done awfully well in the medical, passed all necessary exams, and taken every possible degree. He is now looking out for a practice, and meanwhile a big man in London has sent him out to investigate one of these queer water friction cures—professes to cure cataract and cancer and every known disease, by simply sitting you in a tub, and rubbing you down with a dish-cloth. Dick Cameron says—Hullo! Why are we talking of Dick Cameron? I thought I was telling you about the 'cello."

"You are telling me about the 'cello," said Aubrey, quietly. "But in order to arrive at the 'cello we had to hear about your visit to the publishers with your mass of manuscript, which resulted from having acquired in Central Africa the useful habit of not needing more than half an hour of sleep in the twenty-four; which, possibly, Dick Cameron did not consider sufficient. Doctors are apt to be faddy in such matters. Whereupon you, naturally, told him you were perfectly fit."

"Ah, yes, I remember," said Ronnie. "Am I spinning rather a yarn?"

"Not at all, my dear fellow. Do not hurry. We have the whole evening before us—night, if necessary. You can put in your half-hour at any time, I suppose; and I can dispense with sleep for once. It is not often one has the chance of spending a night in the company of a noted author, an African traveller straight from the jungle, and the man who has married one's favourite cousin. I am all delighted attention. What did your friend Dick Cameron say?"

"Well, I met him as I was hurrying back to the hotel, carrying the Infant, who did not appear to advantage in the exceedingly plain brown canvas bag which was all they could give me at Zimmermann's. When I get home I shall consult Helen, and we shall order the best case procurable."

"Naturally. Probably Helen will advise a bassinet by night, and a perambulator by day."

Ronnie looked perplexed. "Why a bassinet?" he said.

"The Infant, you know."

"Oh—ah, yes, I see. Well, of course I wanted to introduce the Infant properly to Dick Cameron, but he objected when I began taking it out of its bag in the street. He suggested that it might take cold—it certainly is a dank day. Also that there are so many by-laws and regulations in Leipzig connected with things you may not do in the streets, that probably if you took a 'cello out of its case and stood admiring it in the midst of the crowded thoroughfare, you would get run in by a policeman. Dick said: 'Arrest of the Infant of Prague in the Streets of Leipzig' would make just the kind of sensational headline beloved by newspapers. I realised that he was right. It would have distressed Helen, besides being a most unfortunate way for her to hear first of the Infant. Helen is a great stickler for respectability."

Aubrey Treherne's pale countenance turned a shade paler. His thin lips curved into the semblance of a smile.

"Ah, yes," he said, "of course. Helen is a great stickler for respectability. Well? So you gave up undressing your Infant in the street?"

Again Ronnie's eager face took on a look of perplexity.

"I did not propose undressing it," he said.

"I only wanted to take it out of its bag."

"I see. Quite a simple matter. Well? Owing to our absurd police regulations you were prevented from doing this. What happened next?"

"Dick suggested that we should go to his rooms. Arrived there he ceased to take any interest in my 'cello, clapped me into a chair, and stuck a beastly thermometer into my mouth."

"Doctors are such enthusiasts," murmured Aubrey Treherne. "They can never let their own particular trade alone. I suppose he also felt your pulse and looked at your tongue."

"Rather! Then he said I had no business to be walking about with a temperature of 103. I was so much annoyed that I promptly smashed the thermometer, and we had a fine chase after the quicksilver. You never saw anything like it! It ran like a rabbit, in and out of the nooks and corners of the chair, until at last it disappeared through a crack in the floor; went to ground, you know. Doesn't Helen look well on horseback?"

"Charming. I suppose you easily convinced your friend that his diagnosis was rubbish?"

"Of course I did. I told him I had never felt better in my life. But I drank the stuff he gave me, simply to save further bother; also another dose which he brought to the hotel. Then he insisted on leaving a bottle out of which I am to take a dose every three hours on the journey home. I did not know old Dick was such a crank."

"Probably it is the result of sitting in a tub and being scrubbed with a dish-cloth. Did he know you were coming here?"

"Yes; he picked up my pocket-book, found your address, and made a note of it. He said he should probably look us up at about ten o'clock this evening. I told him I might be here pretty late. I did not know you were going to be so kind as to fetch my things from the hotel and put me up. You really are most—"

"Delighted, my dear fellow. Honoured!" said Aubrey Treherne. "Now tell me about the finding of the 'cello."

"I interviewed the publishers, and I hope it is all right. But they seemed rather hurried and vague, and anxious to get me off the premises. No doubt I shall fare better in courteous little Holland. Then I went on to Zimmermann's to choose Helen's organ. I found exactly what she wanted, and at the price she wished. On my way downstairs I found myself in a large room full of violoncellos—dozens of them. They were hanging in glass cases; they were ranged along the top. Then I suddenly felt impelled to look to the top of the highest cabinet, and there I saw the Infant! I knew instantly that that was the 'cello I must have. It seemed mine already. It seemed