“A message? Could you take the message in a wheelbarrow, Joseph?”
“A barrer?” Joseph surveyed his arms and legs, and then took a grip of the laced waistcoat with both hands.
“A message in a wheelbarrow for a shilling, and a pair of collars and a black satin cravat to come I home in, Joseph.”
“Gaffer,” said Joseph, “it's a bargain.”
Reuben's message was Ezra Gold's musical library, and the volumes having been carefully built up in a roomy wheelbarrow, Joseph set out with them at a leisurely pace towards his patron's home. Reuben on first entering his uncle's house had laid the green baize bag upon the table. When the books were all arranged, and Joseph had started away with them, Reuben re-entered.
“I've brought the old lady back again, uncle,” he said.
“You've eased her down, I hope, lad,” said the old man, untying the bag and drawing forth the violin. “That's right. As for bringing her back again, you remember what used to be the sayin' when you was a child, 'Give a thing and take a thing, that's the devil's plaything.' I meant thee to keep her, lad. It's a sin an' a shame as such a voice should be silent.”
“Uncle,” said Reuben, stammering somewhat, “I scarcely like to take her. It seems like—like trespassing on your goodness.”
“I won't demean th' old lady,” returned Ezra. “Her comes o' the right breed to have all the virtues of her kind. Her's a Stradivarius, Reuben, and my grandfather gi'en fifty guineas for her in the year seventeen hundred an' sixty-one. A king might mek a present of her to a king. And that's why in the natural selfishness of a man's heart I kep' her all these 'ears hangin' dumb and idle on the wall here. I take some shame to myself as I acted so, for you might ha' had her half a dozen years ago, and ha' done her no less than as much justice as I could iver ha' done her myself at the best days of my life. Her's yourn, my lad, and I only mek one bargain. If you should marry and have children of your own, and one of 'em should be a player, he can have her, but if not, I ask you to will her to somebody as'll know her value, and handle her as her deserves.”
Reuben was embarrassed by the gift.