her husband held some position in connection with the inspection of railroads, but, in 1902, it had come out that he was in the business of selling counterfeit railroad tickets, and had employed a printer named Paul Casignol to print great numbers of third-class tickets for the purpose of selling them to ignorant soldiers and artisans.  Moreno had fled to America.  She had then discovered that he had also made a practice of checking worthless baggage, stealing it himself and then presenting claims therefor against the railroad companies.  She had been left without a sou, and the rascal had taken everything she had away with him, including even the locket containing the hair of her children.  By the time she had finished her story Moreno’s courage had deserted him, the jury without hesitation returned a verdict of guilty, and the judge then and there sentenced the prisoner to a term at hard labor in State’s prison.

* * * * *

“Mais oui,” grunts Lapierre, as the crow, with a final caw of contempt, alights in a poplar farther down the road, “I don’t blame the bird for laughing at me.  But, after all, there is nothing to be ashamed of.  Is one to be blamed that one is fooled? Hein!  We are all made fools of once and again, and, as I said before, he would have deceived the devil himself.  But perhaps things are better as they are.  Money is the root of all evil.  If I had an automobile I should probably be thrown out and have my neck broken.  But if M’sieu’ intends to take the next train for Bordeaux it is as well that he should be starting.”

III

The Lost Stradivarius

In the year 1885 Jean Bott, a native of Hesse Cassel, Germany, emigrated with his wife Matilda to this country, bringing with him a celebrated violin known as “The Duke of Cambridge Stradivarius,” which he had purchased in 1873 for about three thousand thalers—­a sum representing practically the savings of a lifetime.  Bott had been leader of a small orchestra in Saxe Meiningen as early as 1860, and was well advanced in years before he determined to seek his fortune in America.  His wife was an elderly woman and they had no offspring.

“This violin, my husband and myself made up the family—­I loved it like a child,” she testified at the trial.

So also did Bott, the old musician, love his instrument, and no hand but his own was ever permitted to lift it from its case or dust its darkly-glowing surface.

Whatever may have been its owner’s genius, he prospered little in the new world, and, although he labored conscientiously at his profession, the year 1894 found him still giving lessons upon the violin to only half a dozen pupils, and living in two rooms at 355 West Thirty-first Street.  But Bott, having the soul of a true musician, cared but little for money and was happy enough so long as he could smoke his old meerschaum pipe and draw the bow across the cherished violin held lovingly to his cheek.  Then hard times came a-knocking at the door.  The meagre account in the savings-bank grew smaller and smaller.  The landlord, the doctor and the grocer had to be paid.  One night Bott laid down his pipe and, taking his wife’s wrinkled hand in his, said gently: