Ingolby had his own kind of pride and vanity, and they were both hurt now.

He would have been less irritable if this rival had been as good a man as himself or better.

He was so much a gamester that he would have said, "Let the best man win," and have taken his chances.
His involuntary strategy triumphed for the moment.

The Romany looked at the fiddle for an instant with murderous eyes, but the cool, quiet voice of Ingolby again speaking sprayed his hot virulence.
"You can make a good musician quite often, but a good fiddle is a prize-packet from the skies," Ingolby said.

"When you get a good musician and a good fiddle together it's a day for a salute of a hundred guns." Half-dazed with unregulated emotion, Jethro acted with indecision for a moment, and the fiddle was safe.