“I will murder the innocents no longer,” quoth he, handing back the instrument. “Render them again in living phrase, and so take the taste of my own villainy out of my mouth.”
“It is thith way,” said his lordship, and went on thrumming most mellifluously.
“Ah!” said the Duke. “If one could take the way of genius only by having it pointed out to one! Yet, did not that last note ring a little false?”
“No, by my fay, Thir.”
“You may be right. Yet methinks I have a very hair-splitting ear. It will quarrel on so little as a fraction of a tone. Not the player, but the string, maybe, was to blame. Even your best of instruments will lack perfection, betraying weak places in their constitution, like broken letters in a printed type. Sound it again. ... Ah! it is not quite true, indeed.”
“Your Highneth, thith ith a very ordinary fair guitar; but, ath I thay, I know a better.”
“True; my lady Shrewsbury’s.”
“No.”
“Not? I thought you mentioned hers?”
“Not herth. My lady Chetherfield’th.”