oice, scored by repeating the same tale several times until someone
heard it.

Barrington, who seldom spoke and was an ideal listener, was
appropriated by several men in succession, who each told him a
different yarn. There was one man sitting on an up-ended pail in the
far corner of the room and it was evident from the movements of his
lips that he also was relating a story, although nobody knew what it
was about or heard a single word of it, for no one took the slightest
notice of him...

When the uproar had subsided Harlow remembered the case of a family
whose house got into such a condition that the landlord had given them
notice and the father had committed suicide because the painters had
come to turn 'em out of house and home. There were a man, his wife and
daughter--a girl about seventeen--living in the house, and all three of
'em used to drink like hell. As for the woman, she COULD shift it and
no mistake! Several times a day she used to send the girl with a jug
to the pub at the corner. When the old man was out, one could have
anything one liked to ask for from either of 'em for half a pint of
beer, but for his part, said Harlow, he could never fancy it. They
were both too ugly.

The finale of this tale was received with a burst of incredulous
laughter by those who heard it.

'Do you 'ear what Harlow says, Bob?' Easton shouted to Crass.

'No. What was it?'

''E ses 'e once 'ad a chance to 'ave something but 'e wouldn't take it
on because it was too ugly!'

'If it 'ad bin me, I should 'ave shut me bl--y eyes,' cried Sawkins. 'I
wouldn't pass it for a trifle like that.'

'No,' said Crass amid laughter, 'and you can bet your life 'e didn't
lose it neither, although 'e tries to make 'imself out to be so
innocent.'

'I always though old Harlow was a bl--y liar,' remarked Bundy, 'but now
we knows 'e is.'

Although everyone pretended to disbelieve him, Harlow stuck to his
version of the story.

'It's not their face you want, you know,' added Bundy as he helped
himself to some more tea.

'I know it wasn't my old woman's face that I was after last night,'
observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a
minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and
his wife after they had retired for the night.

This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had
had a few weeks previously: 'I dreamt I was walkin' along the top of a
'igh cliff or