Suddenly John Turner chuckled in a way that fat people have.
"Laughing at your d--d piano-case," he explained.
I had told him shortly before how I had boarded the Calais boat at Dover in the form and semblance of a piano, snugly housed in one of Messrs.

Erard's cases, while my servant engaged in pleasant converse on the quay the bailiff who had been set to watch for me: this, while they were actually slinging me on board.

The picture of the surprise of my fellow-passengers when Loomer gravely unscrewed me and I emerged from my travelling-carriage in mid-channel had pleased John Turner vastly.

Indeed, he told the story to the end of his days, and even brought that end within hail at times by an over-indulgence in apoplectic mirth.

He chuckled at it now in the midst of this solemn service.