ick and dizzy that he was obliged to give it up, and to
lie quite still under the wall, with the organ beside him, till the sun
began to set. Then he dragged himself and his organ back to the large
lodging-room. The landlady had finished her cleaning, and was preparing
the supper for her lodgers. She threw Christie a crust of bread as he
came in, but he was not able to eat it. He crawled to a bench in the far
corner of the room, and putting his old organ against the wall beside
him, he fell asleep.

When he awoke, the room was full of men; they were eating their supper,
and talking and laughing noisily. They took little notice of Christie,
as he lay very still in the corner of the room. He could not sleep
again, for the noise in the place was so great, and now and again he
shuddered at the wicked words and coarse jests which fell on his ear
almost every minute.

Christie's head was aching terribly, and he felt very, very ill; he had
never been so ill in his life before. What would he not have given for a
quiet little corner, in which he might have lain, out of the reach of
the oaths and wickedness of the men in the great lodging-room! And then
his thoughts wandered to old Treffy in "Home, sweet Home." What a
different place his dear old master was in!

"There's no place like home, no place like home," said Christie to
himself. "Oh, what a long way I am from 'Home, sweet Home!'"

CHAPTER XII.

CHRISTIE WELL CARED FOR.

"What's the matter with that little lad?" said one of the men to the
landlady, as she was preparing their breakfast the next morning. "He's
got a fever, or something of the sort. He's been talking about one thing
or another all night. I've had toothache, and scarcely closed my eyes,
and he's never ceased chatting the night through."

"What did he talk about?" asked another man.

"Oh! all sorts of rubbish," said the man with the toothache, "bright
cities, and funerals, and snowdrops; and once he got up, and began to
sing; I wonder you didn't hear him."

"It would have taken a great deal to make _me_ hear him," said the
other, "tired out as I was last night; what did he sing, though?"

"Oh! one of the tunes on his old organ. I expect he gets them in his
head so that he can't get them out. I think it was 'Home, sweet Home,'
he was trying at last night;" and the man went to his work.

"Well, Mrs. White," said another man, "if the boy's in a fever, the
sooner you get him out of this the bet