to the ways of business.

"If I part with my violin I must have real money--money that I can
feel--money that I can count. It was that kind of money that I paid for
my violin," said he doggedly.

Nicolini, in a rage, believing himself insulted, tore the check to bits
and declared the transaction at an end.

Now the price agreed upon for the violin had been forty-five hundred
dollars, of which Flechter was to receive five hundred dollars as his
commission, and when, through old Professor Bott's stubbornness, the
sale fell through, the dealer was naturally very angry. Out of this
incident grew the case against Flechter.

The old musician was accustomed to leave his treasured instrument in the
lowest drawer of his bureau at the boarding-house. He always removed it
before his pupils arrived and never put it back until their departure,
thus insuring the secrecy of its hiding-place, and only his wife, his
sister-in-law, Mollenhauer, a friend, and Klopton, a prospective
purchaser, knew where it lay.

On the morning of March 31, 1894, not long after the Nicolini incident,
Bott gave a single lesson to a pupil at the boarding-house, and after
his midday meal set out with his wife for Hoboken to visit a friend. The
violin was left in its customary place. It was dark when they returned,
and after throwing off his coat and lighting the gas the old man
hastened to make sure that his precious violin was safe. When he pulled
out the drawer it was empty. The Stradivarius was gone, with its leather
case, its two bows and its wooden box.