nt door it swung open, and showed Jimmy the artist sitting
at the bottom of a newly-cleaned staircase. He waggled his hands at us,
and when we entered we saw that the man was stricken speechless. His
eyes grew red--red like a ferret's--and what little breath he had
whistled shrilly. At first we thought it was a fit, and then we saw that
it was mirth--the inopportune mirth of the Artistic Temperament.

The house palpitated to an infamous melody punctuated by the stump of
the barrel-organ's one leg, as Giuseppe, above, moved from room to room
after his rebel slave. Now and again a floor shook a little under the
combined rushes of Lord Lundie and Sir Christopher Tomling, who gave
many and contradictory orders. But when they could they cursed Jimmy
with splendid thoroughness.

"Have you anything to do with the house?" panted Jimmy at last. "Because
we're using it just now." He gulped. "And I'm ah--keeping cave."

"All right," said Penfentenyou, and shut the hall door.

"Jimmy, you unspeakable blackguard, Jimmy, you cur! You coward!"
(Lord Lundie's voice overbore the flood of melody.) "Come up here!
Giussieppe's saying something we don't understand."

Jimmy listened and interpreted between hiccups.

"He says you'd better play the organ, Bubbles, and let him do the
stalking. The monkey knows him."

"By Jove, he's quite right," said Sir Christopher from the landing.
"Take it, Bubbles, at once."

"My God!" said Lord Lundie in horror.

The chase reverberated over our heads, from the attics to the first
floor and back again. Bodies and Voices met in collision and argument,
and once or twice the organ hit walls and doors. Then it broke forth in
a new manner.

"He's playing it," said Jimmy. "I know his acute Justinian ear. Are you
fond of music?"

"I think Lord Lundie plays very well for a beginner," I ventured.

"Ah! That's the trained legal intellect. Like mastering a brief. I
haven't got it." He wiped his eyes and shook.

"Hi!" said Penfentenyou, looking through the stained glass window down
the garden. "What's that!"

* * * * * * * * *

A household removals van, in charge of four men, had halted at the
gate. A husband and his wife householders beyond question--quavered
irresolutely up the path. He looked tired. She was certainly cross.
In all this haphazard world the last couple to understand a scientific
experiment.

I laid hands on Jimmy--the clamour above drowning speech and w