“Not a one that I ever heard of.  Plenty in the city, though.  The waiter at the Arcadia, where I get lunch when I’m at the hospital, is a Magyar.  By Jove, there’s an idea!  I’ll bring Louis out, if Hungary can’t get into the hospital to-morrow—­and I warn you he probably can’t.  I shouldn’t want him to take a twelve-mile ambulance ride in this weather.  That touch of fever may mean simple exhaustion, and it may mean look out for pneumonia, after all the exposure he’s had.  I’d give something to know how it came into his crazy head to stand and fiddle outside a private house in a January storm.  Why didn’t he try a cigar shop or some other warm spot where he could pass the hat?  That’s what Louis must find out for me, eh?  Len, that was great music of his, wasn’t it?  The fellow ought to have a job in a hotel orchestra.  Louis and I between us might get him one.”

Burns went to bed still working on this problem, and Ellen rejoiced that it had superseded the anxieties of the past day.  Next morning he was early at the little foreigner’s bedside, to find him resting quietly, the fever gone, and only the intense fatigue remaining, the cure for which was simply rest and food.

“Shall we let him stay till he’s fit?” Burns asked his wife.

“Of course.  Both Cynthia and Amy are much interested, and between them he will have all he needs.”

“And I’ll bring Louis out, if I have to pay for a waiter to take his place,” promised Burns.

He was as good as his word.  When he returned that afternoon from the daily visit to the city hospital, where he had always many patients, he brought with him in the powerful roadster which he drove himself a dark-faced, pointed moustached countryman of little Hungary, who spoke tolerable English, and was much pleased and flattered to be of service to the big doctor whom he was accustomed to serve in his best manner.

Taken to the bedside, Louis gazed down at its occupant with condescending but comprehending eyes, and spoke a few words which caused the thin face on the pillow to break into smiles of delight, as the eager lips answered in the same tongue.  Question and answer followed in quick succession and Louis was soon able to put Burns in possession of a few significant facts.

“He say he come to dis countree October.  Try find work New York—­no good.  He start to valk to countree, find vork farm.  Bad time.  Seeck, cold, hungree.  Fear he spoil hands for veolinn—­dat’s vhy he not take vork on road, vat he could get.  He museecian—­good one.”

“Does he say that?” Burns asked, amused.

Louis nodded.  “Many museecians in Hungary.  Franz come from Budapest.  No poor museecians dere.  Budapest great ceety—­better Vienna, Berlin, Leipsic—­oh, yes!  See, I ask heem.”

He spoke to the boy again, evidently putting a meaning question, for again the other responded with ardour, using his hands to emphasize his assertion—­for assertion it plainly was.