Come in and see me, the Professor, some evening when I have nothing
else to do, and ask me to play you _Tartini's Devil's Sonata_ on that
extraordinary instrument in my possession, well known to amateurs as
one of the master-pieces of _Joseph Guarnerius_. The _vox humana_ of
the great Haerlem organ is very lifelike, and the same stop in the
organ of the Cambridge chapel might be mistaken in some of its tones
for a human voice; but I think you never heard anything come so near
the cry of a _prima donna_ as the A string and the E string of this
instrument. A single fact will illustrate the resemblance. I was
executing some _tours de force_ upon it one evening, when the policeman
of our district rang the bell sharply, and asked what was the matter in
the house. He had heard a woman's screams,--he was sure of it. I had to
make the instrument _sing_ before his eyes before he could be satisfied
that he had not heard the cries of a woman. This instrument was
bequeathed to me by the Little Gentleman. Whether it had anything to do
with the sounds I heard coming from his chamber, you can form your own
opinion; I have no other conjecture to offer. It is _not true_ that a
second apartment with a secret entrance was found; and the story of the
veiled lady is the invention of one of the Reporters.

Bridget, the housemaid, always insisted that he died a Catholic. She
had seen the crucifix, and believed that he prayed on his knees before
it. The last circumstance is very probably true; indeed, there was a
spot worn on the carpet just before this cabinet which might be thus
accounted for. Why he, whose whole life was a crucifixion, should not
love to look on that divine image of blameless suffering, I cannot see;
on the contrary, it seems to me the most natural thing in the world
that he should. But there are those who want to make private property
of everything, and can't make up their minds that people who don't