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“I will show you some of these wonders,” said Professor Baffin. “Most happily I have with me in my trunks quite a number of instruments, such as those I have told you of.”

“In your trunks!” exclaimed the Baron. “You do not wear trunks, as we do.”

The Professor at once explained the misapprehension. When he had done, there was heard in the room the twanging of the strings of a rude musical instrument.

“It is the minstrel,” said Sir Dinadan, as the Professor and Miss Baffin looked around.

The Professor was delighted.

“He is going to sing,” said the Baron.

The bard, after a few preliminary thrums upon an imbecile harp, burst into song. He occupied several moments in reciting a ballad of chivalry, and although his manner was dramatic, his voice was sadly cracked and out of tune.

“Tilly,” said the Professor, “remember to note in your journal that the musical system here is constructed from a defective minor scale, with incorrect intervals. I observed precisely the same characteristics in the song that our Irish nurse, Mary, used to put you to sleep with when you were a baby. I stood outside the chamber door one night, and wrote the strain down as she sang it. This proves that it is very ancient.”