That's rather a cawker, you know.' 'And I don't believe you were thinking of anything in the world,' said I--which put a period to his respectable conversion.
He consoled himself by playing for awhile on a cheap flageolet, which was one of his diversions, and to which I owed many intervals of peace.

When he first produced it, in the joints, from his pocket, he had the duplicity to ask me if I played upon it.

I answered, no; and he put the instrument away with a sigh and the remark that he had thought I might.
For some while he resisted the unspeakable temptation, his fingers visibly itching and twittering about his pocket, even his interest in the landscape and in sporadic anecdote entirely lost.

Presently the pipe was in his hands again; he fitted, unfitted, refitted, and played upon it in dumb show for some time.
'I play it myself a little,' says he.
'Do you ?' said I, and yawned.
And then he broke down.
'Mr.Ramornie, if you please, would it disturb you, sir, if I was to play a chune ?' he pleaded.

And from that hour, the tootling of the flageolet cheered our way.
He was particularly keen on the details of battles, single combats, incidents of scouting parties, and the like.