The audience broke into applause, but with a single glance
Ventnor stilled them, and dashed straight into the melody precisely
where he had left off.
Archie could hardly believe his ears. Was _that_ his old thirty-dollar
fiddle? That marvellous thing that murmured, and wept, and laughed under
the master hand! Oh! the voice of it! The voice of it!
They would not let Ventnor go when he smiled himself off the stage.
They called and shouted, "Encore!" "Encore!" until he returned to
respond--respond, not with his own priceless instrument, but with
Archie's, and with a grace and kindliness that only a great man
possesses. He played a good-night lullaby on the boy's cheap little
violin, and, moreover, played it as he never had before. Archie
remembered afterwards that he had presence of mind enough to get on his
feet when they all sang "God Save the King," but it really seemed a
dream that Ventnor was shaking hands with him and saying, "I t'ank you,
me; I t'ank you. You save me great awkwardness." And then, before he
knew it, he had promised to go to the hotel the next day and play for
Ventnor.
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