I can see his very gesture as he enjoined silence on the band; for we had a band, and it was playing "Come, Cheer Up, My Lads!" As though we weren't cheerful enough already! [But "Come, come!" the reader will object.

"All this happened a hundred years ago.

Yet here are you talking as if you had been present." Very true: it is a way we have in Troy.

Call it a foible--but forgive it! The other day, for instance, happening on the Town Quay, I found our gasman, Mr.Rabling, an earnest Methodist, discussing to a small crowd on the subject of the Golden Calf, and in this fashion: "Well, friends, in the midst of all this pillaloo, hands-across and down-the-middle, with old Aaron as bad as any and flinging his legs about more boldacious with every caper, I happens to glance up the hill, and with that I gives a whistle; for what do I see but a man aloft there picking his way down on his heels with a parcel under his arm! Every now and then he pulls up, shading his eyes, so, like as if he'd a lost his bearin's.

I glances across to Aaron, and thinks I, 'Look out for squalls! Here's big brother coming, and a nice credit _this'll_ be to the family!'.