It was said to be simply heart-rending, and everybody used to cry.

Well, the night Jock MacTavish was there something went wrong--a sofa was out of its place, or a bolster had been forgotten, or a rope wouldn't work, I don't know what it was--and the language that woman indulged in while she was in the act of dying would have disgraced a bargee.

Jock was in a stage-box and heard every filthy word of it.

Of course _he_ told me the story as a joke, and I was rather disgusted, but I'm glad he did so now.

That was an extreme case, I know--such things don't occur one time in ten thousand, no doubt--but it's an illustration of what I mean when I say that the finer the illusion produced the hollower the sham that produces it." "You're a mighty subtle-minded young person for your age," exclaimed St Aubyn, with a good-humoured laugh.