“Funny!” said Archie.  “Funny!  Hock, I’ll knock you down if you call Ventnor ‘funny.’  Why, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world for him to do.  Oh, Hock! and to think that at last I will hear him!”

“I never heard tell of him before,” observed Hock, with evident pride in his ignorance.

“There’s no greater violinist in the world, Hock,” replied Archie with enthusiasm.  His cheeks were scarlet, his eyes sparkling, his thin hands trembling with excitement.

“Well, I’m not keen on hearing anyone fiddle any better than you do,” Hock answered soberly.  “Whenever you fiddle you just give me the jim-jams, with the creeps going up and down my back; and what’s worse, I always have to blow my nose when you get through.”

“What a good chap you are, Hock!  You make me believe in myself.  Perhaps I really will amount to something some day,” replied Archie, warmly.

“Betcherlife!” said the sturdy one.  “Well, so-long!  I’m glad you’ll hear the big violin player, Arch, if you really have been wanting to.”

Wanting to!  Archie Anderson had longed to hear Ventnor ever since he first drew a bow across the strings.  He could hardly wait until the night of the great concert.  Owing to the extreme heat of the summer he had been taking his lessons late in the evening, but on this eventful night his teacher, himself anxious to go, told Archie to come at seven o’clock; he could then give him a full hour, and the lesson would be over in plenty of time for them both to attend the concert at half-past eight.  The lesson was trying and the excitement was beginning to tell on the boy, so, without returning home, he went straight to the hall, his violin case tucked under his arm.  Purposely he had engaged a seat in the very first row; he wanted to watch the great master’s marvellous fingers, as well as drink in the music they made.  Even at eight o’clock the hall was so packed that he could hardly get through the aisles.  The excellence of the programme, as well as the charitable object, had drawn out the entire town, and Archie took his seat fearful that the overpowering summer heat and crowded hall would be his undoing.  He did not even hear the opening piano solo by the “long-haired fellow,” as Hock had called him, nor did he rhapsodize over handsome Miss Van Alstine, whose wonderful gown and thrilling voice captured the audience.  It was only when a slender, dark, elderly man stepped down to the footlights with a violin in his long, thin hands that Archie sat bolt upright, his eyes blazing with excitement, his breath catching in his throat.

The great man’s face was fine as an engraving, with a melancholy mouth, and eyes that burned like black fires.  He stood a brief second, gave his head, crowned with long, grey hair, a quick, nervous toss, and drew his bow across the strings softly, sweetly, with a heart-breaking sound that fell on his listeners like the sob of a thousand winds.  For five minutes he held them spellbound.  It was only when he half smiled and stepped into the stage wings that they realized that it was over.  Then with one accord the entire audience broke into a storm of applause—­all but Archie, who sat with locked fingers and tense face; for the life of him he could not move a single muscle—­he was simply paralyzed with pleasure; at last he had listened to music!