“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 as if it always had been mine.  I asked to be shown some violoncellos.  They produced two or three, in which I took no interest.  Then I said:  ’Get down that dark brown one, third from the end.’  They lifted it down, and, from the moment I touched it, I knew it must be mine!  They told me it was made at Prague, a hundred and fifty years ago, and its price was three thousand marks.  Luckily, I had my cheque-book in my pocket, also my card, Helen’s card, my publisher’s letter of introduction to the firm here, and my own letter of credit from my bankers.  So they expressed themselves willing to take my cheque.  I wrote it then and there, and marched out with the Infant.  I first called it the Infant on the stairs, as we were leaving Zimmermann’s, because I almost bumped its head!  Isn’t it a beauty?”