in dragging over the ear drum, a
meaningless cacophony of sounds that gradually resolved into a thin,
incredibly metallic melody which appeared, mercifully, to come from a
distance. To this was presently joined a voice, the voice, as it were, of
a sinister, tin manikin galvanized into convulsive song. The words grew
audible in broken phrases:

... was a lucky man,
Rip van Winkle ... grummmble
... never saw the women
At Coney Island swimming ...

General Jackson sat abruptly on his haunches, and lifted a long, quavering
protest. As the cylinder went round and round, and the shrill performance
continued, the dog's howling grew wilder; it reached a point where it
broke into a hoarse cough, then again it recommenced lower in the scale,
carrying over a gamut of indescribable, audible misery.

Gordon slapped his leg in acute enjoyment. "The General's a regular opera
singer, a high-rolling canary. Go after it ... a regular concert dog."

"Gordon," Lettice said, in a small, strained voice. Apparently he had not
heard her. "Gordon," she repeated more loudly. She had dropped the piece
of sewing, her hands were clenched, her face wet and pallid. "Gordon!" she
cried, her voice cutting through the sound of the phonograph and the
howling dog; "stop it, do you hear! I'll go crazy! Stop it! Stop it! Stop
it!"

He silenced the machine in genuine surprise. "Why, everything works you up
to-night. I thought you'd like to hear General Jackson sing; he's got a
real deep barytone."

Lettice sat limply in her chair. "I stood it just as long as I could," she
half whispered.

Gordon walked to the unshuttered window, gazing out; above the
impenetrable, velvety dark of the western range the stars gleamed like
drops of water. He felt unsettled, ill at ease; dissatisfaction irked his
thoughts and emotions. His unrest was without tangible features; it
permeated him from an undivined cause, oppressed him with indefinable
longing. He got, he dimly realized, but a limited amount of satisfaction
from the money now at his command. He was totally without financial
instinct--money for itself, the abstraction, was beyond his comprehension.
He had bought a ponderous gold watch, which he continually neglected to
wind; the years of stage driving had sated him of horses; his clothes were
already a subject of jest in Greenstream; and he had seriously damaged his
thr