"Oh, you needn't mind my friend; it's only
Mr. Scroop."

The old clerk still hesitated. " In matters of
business——" he began.

The third fiddle got up and proposed to go.

"Not a bit, not a bit," interposed the other;
"we must practise all that over again before
you go. Since I must be tormented about
business, I'll get it over. Come into the dining-
room, Jonathan." And suiting the action to
the word, he led the way into an adjoining
apartment, the old man following, and closing
the door after him.

Mr. Scroop began to amuse himself with his
violin. It is one of the privileges of musicians
that they need never know ennui.

He " tried," as the fraternity say, all sorts of
favourite bits over and over again on his instrument,
with his head on one side, and frowning
profoundly. He went from these to the study
of his part in that very composition in which
Mr. Lethwaite was also preparing to distinguish
himself. Then he went off again to morsels of
different classical composers, snatches of Bach,
and glimpses of Mendelssohn, and finally he
put down his instrument, and walked slowly
about the room with his hands behind him,
looking at the prints and photographs on the
wall, and humming softly to himself all the
time—a depressing occupation enough.

At last, when he was beginning to think that
the hour had come when he might legitimately
take up his hat and go, the door of the dining-room
re-opened, and Mr. Lethwaite entered the
room, followed by his clerk.

"My dear Scroop," he said, quite calmly, " I
am perfectly overwhelmed with shame to think
that you should have been left all this time
alone, and that our important occupation should
have been intercepted by so trivial a matter as
the arrival of my clerk with his budget full of
business. Now, Jonathan," he continued,
addressing the old man, whose anxious and
depressed appearance showed in wonderful
contrast to the gallant bearing of his patron, " will
you stop and hear a duet performed by Mr.
Scroop and myself on two instruments seldom
heard together alone, or are you bent on going
back to that horrible place—the City?"

The old man shook his head. " I'd rather go
back to-day, sir, with your permission." And
with that he made his best bow, and retired, still
with the same anxious countenance with which
he had arrived.

"I would give a great deal," said Lethwaite,
as soon as the door was closed, " to be able to
believe in that old man as completely as I feel
inclined to do. He is one of the few people who
have borne the test of time—one of the few in
whom I have been unable to detect anything
unworthy even after years of intimate association.
I almost wish that something might occur
which might enable me to test his fidelity unmistakably."

"Perhaps something may," said Mr. Scroop,
whose retorts were ever of the brilliant sort.

"Not unlikely—and now let's try the difficult
bit again." And our imperturbable friend seized
his drumsticks and commenced a brilliant
flourish on his instrument.

And at it they went once more with renewed
energy. Mr. Scroop's mind went at once into
his violin, and wonderful results ensued, while
Julius Lethwaite tried hard to get his mind into
his drums, and rattled away with prodigious
force, and sufficient regard to time, to satisfy
even so good a musician as his present coadjutor.
They went on for full half an hour more, the one
whining and twiddling, and the other rattling
and thumping, till at last the third fiddle
discovered that it was time for him to go, as he had
promised to " try " something else, with somebody
else, in the course of that same afternoon.

"Have you any idea," asked Mr. Lethwaite,
as the third violin was on the point of departing,
"have you any idea, as to what is the salary of
' the drum,' in a good orchestra?"

"I should think about from two to three
guineas a week," replied Mr. Scroop, "but I am
not sure."

"As much as that," said our friend, quietly.

"Oh, I should think, at least," answered the
other. " Have you any idea of applying for the
post:" he added, smiling.

"More unlikely things have happened."

"Very well, I'll make inquiry," quoth the
other, still smiling. And with that he got up
to go, thinking what a good joke it was. The
luxurious Mr. Lethwaite drumming in an
orchestra for a living. "I can see you," he
said, "coming through the little door under
the stage, wiping your mouth after having
partaken of a pint of porter."

Mr. Scroop took his leave, still smiling at this
conceit, and made off to keep his appointment. As
he descended the stairs on his way to the street
he could hear his musical friend still drumming
away with prodigious energy. The sounds were
audible even in the street, and as long as the third
fiddle remained within range they did not cease
for so much as a single instant.

LONDON IN BOOKS.

WHiEN I think over the past history of this
enormous metropolis, I seem, to be present at
some grand drama, in which the actors are kings,
queens, princes, nobles, prelates, wits, poets,
philosophers, statesmen, soldiers; the great and
the little, the good and the wicked, the happy
and the unfortunate, the wise and the foolish;
men and women who have really lived and died,
enjoyed and suffered, triumphed or fallen, in the
very localities where I go aoout my daily work,
or even in some of the actual buildings which I
still behold. The early scenes of that drama
are in fairy-land. I see fabulous Brutus and his
Trojans landing in ancient Britain, conquering
giants, winning their way to the fair river which
we now call Thames, and founding on its banks
a city which, in its name and its traditions,
should preserve the memory of vanished Troy:

And Troynovant was built of old Troy's ashes cold.