a, he saw the belly of
an old Bass hung up with other things. Chanot rubbed his eyes, and
asked himself was he dreaming? the belly of a Stradivari Bass roasting
in a shop window! He went in, and very soon bought it for about forty
francs. He then ascertained that the Bass belonged to a lady of rank.
The belly was full of cracks; so, not to make two bites of a cherry,
Ortega had made a nice new one. Chanot carried this precious fragment
home and hung it up in his shop, but not in the window, for he was too
good a judge not to know that the sun will take all the colour out of
that maker's varnish. Tarisio came in from Italy, and his eye lighted
instantly on the Stradivari belly. He pestered Chanot till the latter
sold it him for a thousand francs, and told him where the rest was.
Tarisio no sooner knew this than he flew to Madrid. He learned from
Ortega where the lady lived, and called on her to see it. 'Sir,' says
the lady, 'it is at your disposition.' That does not mean much in
Spain. When he offered to buy it, she coquetted with him, said it had
been long in her family; money could not replace a thing of that kind,
and, in short, she put on the screw, _as she thought_, and sold it him
for about four thousand francs. What he did with the Ortega belly is
not known; perhaps sold it to some person in the toothpick trade. He
sailed exultant for Paris with the Spanish Bass in a case. He never
let it go out of his sight. The pair were caught by a storm in the Bay
of Biscay; the ship rolled; Tarisio clasped his Bass tightly and
trembled. It was a terrible gale, and for one whole day they were in
real danger. Tarisio spoke of it to me with a shudder. I will give you
his real words, for they struck me at the time, and I have often
thought of them since. '_Ah, my poor Mr. Reade, the Bass of Spain was
all but lost!_'

"Was not this a true connoisseur--a genuine enthusiast? Observe, there
was also an ephemeral insect called Luigi Tarisio, who would have gone
down with the Bass; but that made no impression on his mind. _De
minimis non curat Ludovicus!_

"He got it safe to Paris. A certain high-priest in these mysteries,
called Vuillaume, with the help of a sacred vessel, called the
glue-pot, soon re-wedded the back and sides to the belly, and the Bass
now is just what it was when the ruffian Ortega put his finger in the
pie. It was sold for 20,000 fr. (800 pounds). I saw the Spanish Bass
in Paris twenty-five years ago, and you can