I
do not know."

"Was there no one who came to visit him while you were there during
the day. No one whom he spoke of in an intimate way?"

Again the clerk shook his head. Stillman began to appear nonplussed.
He looked at the other, pondering and frowning through his glasses.

"Who came most frequently to the store?" he inquired finally.

"Why, I think Antonio Spatola," said Brolatsky.

"Was he a customer?"

The clerk smiled.

"Oh, no. He's a street musician. You may have seen him often about the
city. He plays the violin and carries some trained cockatoos upon a
perch."

"What was the nature of his business at Hume's?"

"If there was anything that Mr. Hume liked better than strong drink,"
said the clerk, "it was music. Antonio Spatola would come and play to
him for hours at a time."

"A lover of music who could stand the playing of a street musician for
hours!" cried Stillman. "That's astonishing."

"But," protested Brolatsky, "Spatola is a splendid musician. He's
studied his instrument under the greatest masters in Paris, Rome and
other European cities. He has played in the finest orchestras. But he
never could keep a position because of his temper. He's told me
himself that when aroused he doesn't know what he is doing."

"I understand," said the coroner. "What sort of relations existed
between Hume and Spatola outside the music? Were they friendly?"

"No, sir. I might say just the reverse. For hours, sometimes, Mr. Hume
would lie back in his chair with his eyes closed listening to the
violin. Then, perhaps, he'd get up suddenly, throw Antonio a dollar or
so and tell him to get out. Or maybe he'd begin to jeer at him.
Antonio had an ambition to become a concert violinist. Ole Bull and
Kubelik had made great successes, he said; and so, why not he?

"This was usually the point Mr. Hume would take up in mocking him.
He'd call him a curbstone fiddler, and say that he ought to be playing
at barn dances and Italian christenings instead of aspiring to the
platform. Spatola would get frantic with rage, and fairly scream his
resentment at these times.

"Often Mr. Hume would have him bring his trained cockatoos. And while
he was making them go through their tricks, Mr. Hume would call him a
mountebank, a side show fakir and other things, and tell him that he
ought to stick to that as a business, for he could make a living at
it, where he would starve as a violinist. I've often seen Antonio go
out trembling