"I'm a slave," he said. "I've got a master. It's Jim. Jim's a hard
master, too. He'd give me fits if we ground our cigarette ashes into the
carpet."
He threw the refuse into a flower-pot.
"That squares Jim. Now let's turn the world inside out," he proceeded.
He handed the fiddle over. "Here's the little thing that'll let you do
the trick. Isn't it a beauty, Jethro Fawe?"
The Romany took it, his eyes glistening with mingled feelings. Hatred
was in his soul, and it showed in the sidelong glance as Ingolby turned
to place a chair where he could hear and see comfortably; yet he had the
musician's love of the perfect instrument, and the woods and the streams
and the sounds of night and the whisperings of trees and the ghosts that
walked in lonely places and called across the glens--all were pouring
into his brain memories which made his pulses move far quicker than the
liquor he had drunk could do.
"What do you wish?" he asked as he tuned the fiddle.
Ingolby laughed good-humouredly. "Something Eastern; something you'd
play for yourself if you were out by the Caspian Sea. Something that has
life in it."
Jethro continued to tune the fiddle carefully and abstractedly.
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