III
The words, “Give her a Stradivarius,” had hardly been spoken aloud by young Mackintosh when he was surprised by a knocking upon the board partition dividing his attic room from the one adjoining it. After a pause, during which he listened, the knocking was renewed.
Colin, remembering that his neighbor was an infirm and melancholy looking old fellow, whom he sometimes met wearily climbing the stairs with a loaf of bread and a brown paper bag of comestibles hugged to his breast, fancied himself called upon for help. He had but just removed his coat and, putting it on, hastily ran out into the entry, and tapped at the door of the next room.
A feeble voice called to him to come in. The interior resembled Colin’s own in lack of comfort. A gas-jet was burning, which revealed, lying dressed upon the bed close to the partition wall, the man he had often seen—gentle-faced, though hollow-eyed, and evidently racked by some chronic malady.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Colin’s neighbor, “but I must have been dreaming. I awoke suddenly, believing I heard some one distinctly say, ‘Give her a Stradivarius!’ And so I knocked on the wall, the way I used to call my nephew when he lived with me.”
“I did say those words,” answered Colin, blushing. “I was thinking aloud.”
“I beg pardon again, sir,” said the man, sitting up on the bed with an eager expression. “This is a coincidence I think you will agree is remarkable. I had fallen asleep thinking of a Stradivarius. I was dreaming of it. In fact, I rarely think of anything else, in these days. For to have owned something that in my present poverty would have been a little fortune, and to have had it stolen from me by my—Good God! I can’t speak of him. It’s too base for words. Mr. Mackintosh, I’m ashamed of myself. You see, I know your name. Mine is Rupert Thorndyke.”