“Shiny! shiny!” spluttered the old gentleman with testy scorn.
“Ah, but that won’t do. Let the company have your word, Uncle Tom.” And the young rogue tipped a wink to a knot of students. “The violin is—?”
“Effulgent!” shouted his adversary, wheeling upon him and bringing down the violin, held in both hands, with a swoop.
I shall take the liberty here of assuming that my readers are, as I was myself, till Charley enlightened me, ignorant of the fact that the varnish of the violins of the old masters is considered a great point. Collectors go into raptures over the peculiar lustre of their old instruments, which, they say, is the despair of modern makers. I have myself seen, or at least handled, but one of them,—my grandfather’s old Guarnerius,—and that, certainly, was singularly beautiful in this respect.
“Effulgent!” cried he, his noble brown eyes dilated, his head tossed back and swaying from side to side,—tapping gently, with the finger-nails of his right hand, the back of the violin, upon which the light of a neighboring lamp danced and flamed. The students indicated to Billy, in their hearty fashion, that he had got what he wanted, and Mr. Whacker, spurred on by their approval, rose to the height of his great argument.
“Just look at that,” said he, turning with enthusiasm to one of the students,—“just look at that,” he repeated, flashing the golden light into the eyes of another; “why, it almost seems to me that we have here the very rays that, a century ago, this maple wood absorbed in its pores from the sun of Italy.”
How much more my grandfather was going to say I know not; for he was interrupted by a storm of applause from his young auditors.
“I say, boys, that’s a regular old-fashioned ‘curl,’” whispered one of them.
“Uncle Tom,” said Billy, removing the bow from the case, “does this effulge any?”
“But, Mr. Whacker,” observed a fat and jolly middle-aged gentleman, “it strikes me that the important thing about a fiddle is its tone, not its varnish. Now, do you really think your Cremona superior to a twenty-dollar fiddle in tone? Honestly now, is there any difference worth mentioning?”