ight--it's bloomin' well all right--don't give him any more.

"'Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain.'

--It's the Passing Bell.--What are they ringing it for?--He's not
dead--he'll come back again when he's ready.--Stop 'em ringing that
bell!

"'Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self.'

All right--he's comin' back.--Nightingales!--Who wants to hear about a
lot o' bloomin' nightingales. _I_ don't. _I'm_ all right--get me a cup
o' tea.--It's Tom Barter who's drunk, not me!

"'Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.'

The mail goes o' Fridays--K Battery, Peshawur, Punjaub--O my God, let
Bill tell him!--Shut up, you blasted old fool, or I'll knock yer silly
head off! _You'll_ never get there!--What do _you_ know about
nightingales? I heard 'em singin' for hundreds and thousands of years
before _you_ were born:

"'Thou was not born for death, immortal bird,
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I heard this passing night was heard
In ancient days, by Emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same voice that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn,
The same that ofttimes hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.'"

The whole of this verse was a reproduction of Mrs. Abel's rendering,
spoken in a voice not unlike hers, and with scarcely the falter of a
syllable. It was followed by a few seconds of incoherent babble, at the
end of which tremors again broke out over Snarley's body; he swayed to
and fro, and his head fell forward on his chest. "Catch hold of him, or
he'll fall," cried somebody. Then a medley of voices--"Give him a drop
of brandy!" "No, don't you see he's dead drunk a'ready?" "Drunk! not
'im. Do you think he could imitate Mrs. Abel like that if he was drunk?"
"Take them gels out o' the barn as quick as you can!" "If she don't stop
shriekin' when you get 'er home, throw a bucket o' cold water over her.
It's only 'isterics." "Well, I've seed a lot o' queer things in my time,
and I've knowed Snarley to do some rum tricks, but I never seed nowt
like _that_." "Oh dear, sir, I never felt so upset in all my life. It
isn't _right_! Somebody ought to ha' stopped 'im. I