lls," whereas Mr. Hearty seemed
to cherish an equally strong love for "Pull for the Shore, Sailors."
Never were these hymns sung less than three times each during the
course of the evening.

Bindle had thought of many ways of trying to end the performance. Once
he had dexterously inserted his penknife in the bellows of the
harmonium whilst looking for a pencil he was supposed to have dropped.
This, however, merely added to the horror of the situation.

"The bloomin' thing blew worse than 'Earty," he said.

One evening he determined to put his new idea into practice. The gross
volume of sound produced by the quartette with the harmonium was
extremely small, and Bindle conceived the idea of drowning it.

"I'll stew 'em in their own juice," he muttered.

He had no voice, and very little idea either of tune or of time. What
he did possess he was careful to forget. The first hymn in which he
joined was "Pull for the Shore, Sailors."

From the first Bindle's voice proved absolutely uncontrollable. It
wavered and darted all over the gamut, and as it was much louder than
the combined efforts of the other three, plus the harmonium, Bindle
appeared to be soloist, the others supplying a subdued accompaniment.
Unity of effort seemed impossible. Whilst they were in the process of
"pulling," he was invariably on "the shore"; and when they had arrived
at "the shore," he had just started "pulling." Time after time they
stopped to make a fresh start, but without improving the general effect.

Bindle showed great concern at his curious inability to keep with the
others, and suggested retiring from the contest; but this Mr. Hearty
would not hear of. To help matters he beat time with his hand, but as
his vocal attitude was one of contemplation of the ceiling, generally
with closed eyes, he very frequently hit Millie on the head, causing
her to lose her place and forget the pedals, with the result that the
harmonium died away in a moan of despair. Bindle, however, always went
on. All he required was the words, to which he did full justice.

The evening was terminated by the collapse of Mrs. Hearty.

On the following day Bindle could not talk above a whisper.

One result of Bindle's vocal efforts had been that invitations to spend
Sunday evenings with the Heartys had become less frequent, a
circumstance on which Mrs. Bindle did not fail to comment.

"You're always spoilin' things for me. I enjoyed those evenin's," she