Somewhere outside a phonograph struck up a band piece, and Haylocks was off for it, his coat-tail buttons flopping in the middle of his back.
     "Divvy, Mike," said the men hanging upon the bar, winking openly at one another. "Thought by some to be the medium through which the angels can sing directly to us, and used by the great Mesmer himself to condition patients before hypnosis, I give you, ladies and gentlemen ..."
     A pause, as he drips more water from a plastic can, and runs his moistened finger round the rim of several adjoining glasses to test the pitch. Each gives up its luminous golden tone like the dying breath of a song thrush.
     "... the original of the instrument known as the seraphim, the eumelia, the claviclindre ..."
     Jakub presses the button on the cassette player. The opening bars of Dido's lament sough from the machine. He takes his daughter's arm and turns her away from the wall to face the passing tourists. For a few seconds she looks confused, clutching her coat round her thin body. Then she begins to sing, her voice trembling silver above the glass harmonica's spun gold. As her voice grows in power, the small crowd which has gathered round the harmonica, turn to find out where the new sound is coming from. The old man glares irritably at Jakub as his carefully prepared audience drift the twenty feet up the bridge to listen to the shivering girl.
     "Honest, now," said the bartender, kicking the valise to one side. "You don't think I'd fall to that, do you? Anybody can see he ain't no jay. One of McAdoo's come-on squad, I guess. He's a shine if he made himself up. There ain't no parts of the country now where they dress like that since they run rural free delivery to Providence, Rhode Island. If he's got nine-fifty in that valise it's a ninety-eight cent Waterbury that's stopped at ten minutes to ten."