LOST AND FOUND [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sta,—Apropos of your competition, perhaps the following absolutely accurate account of• an incident which happened to myself may elicit some explanation from one of your many readers.
A musical friend gave me a rather peculiar xylonite mute for my violin. I have never seen one like it. Some years later I was in Mahableshwar; a hill station in India, and I lent my fiddle to a Jewish violinist for a concert at the club. I asked him to be especially careful of the mute, which he was going to use. .
Next morning he returned the violin in its case, but the mute was missing. I sent up a note at once, and he answered that he had left the mute on the corner of the mantelpiece in the concert hall ; it was never found. The following hot weather I spent in England. I used always to pack my violin in one of Hill's block tin cases for the voyage, and this involved emptying out and transferring all the contents of the wooden case into the tin one, so that I must have noticed the mute if by any conceivable chance it had crept into a corner.
I took my violin to London on a visit, and the case sat in the fender of the fireplace in the back drawing-room. The friend, who had given me the mute, came to tea, and the sight of him reminded me of the lost treasure, but I said nothing about it for fear of hurting his feelings.
He did not go near the fireplace. After he had left I noticed a little black xylonite mute, the image of mine, reposing on the corner of the mantelpiece.
I called the attention of my hostess to it and asked if it belonged to her husband. She did not know, but, when he came home that evening, he said he had never had one like it, and had never seen one of the same make. • So, with a clear conscience and rather puzzled brain, I annexed that mute, which I verily believe to have been the Original article. I have it still. The only explanation which I think can be given is that our friend " the Poltergeist " or " Elemental " took it from the mantelpiece in India, forgot all about it till he chanced to be in the neighbourhood of the two people who were interested in it, and then, like the kind creature he is fundamentally, replaced it as nearly as possible in the correct position.—I am, Sir, &c.;
HELEN M. CHITTY.
Munthatn, Barrington Road, Torquay
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