ning it was, and after breakfast he had fixed to walk with the boy
some way on the road toward Helston, where the coach started. My father
left them at breakfast together, and went out to meat the pig, and do a
few odd morning jobs of that sort. When he came back, the boy was still
at table, and the trumpeter sat with the rings in his hands, hitched,
together just as they be at this moment.

"'Look at this,' he says to my father, showing him the lock. 'I picked
it up off a starving brass-worker in Lisbon, and it is not one of your
common locks that one word of six letters will open at any time.
There's janius in this lock; for you've only to make the rings spell any
six-letter word you please and snap down the lock upon that, and never
a soul can open it--not the maker, even--until somebody comes along that
knows the word you snapped it on. Now Johnny here's goin', and he leaves
his drum behind him; for, though he can make pretty music on it, the
parchment sags in wet weather, by reason of the sea-water getting at it;
an' if he carries it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give
him another. And, as for me, I shan't have the heart to put lip to the
trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together,
and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em
here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come
back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, and he'll
take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never
comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody besides knows the word. And
if you marry and have sons, you can tell 'em that here are tied together
the souls of Johnny Christian, drummer of the Marines, and William
George Tallifer, once trumpeter of the Queen's Own Hussars. Amen.'

"With that he hung the two instruments 'pon the hook there; and the boy
stood up and thanked my father and shook hands; and the pair went out of
the door, toward Helston.

"Somewhere on the road they took leave of one another; but nobody saw
the parting, nor heard what was said between them. About three in the
afternoon the trumpeter came walking back over the hill; and by the time
my father came home from the fishing, the cottage was tidied up, and the
tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time
for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house
and tilling the garden. And all the while he was steadily failin