el wite, and pinky round here."

"I bet she won't make me knuckle down to her, no matter wot colour she
is," returned Peter, in a surly tone.

No doubt it was this idea which later in the afternoon induced him to
swagger forward to shake hands with me with a flash insolent leer on his
face. I took pains to be especially nice to him, treating him with
deference, and making remarks upon the extreme heat of the weather with
such pleasantness that he was nonplussed, and looked relieved when able
to escape. I smiled to myself, and apprehended no further trouble from
Peter.

The table for tea was set exactly as it had been before, and was lighted
by a couple of tallow candles made from bad fat, and their odour was such
as my jockey travelling companion of the day before would have described
as a tough smell.

"Give us a toon on the peeany," said Mrs M'Swat after the meal, when the
dishes had been cleared away by Lizer and Rose Jane. The tea and scraps,
of which there was any amount, remained on the floor, to be picked up by
the fowls in the morning.

The children lay on the old sofa and on the chairs, where they always
slept at night until their parents retired, when there was an all-round
bawl as they were wakened and bundled into bed, dirty as they were, and
very often with their clothes on.

I acceded to Mrs M'Swat's request with alacrity, thinking that while
forced to remain there I would have one comfort, and would spend all my
spare time at the piano. I opened the instrument, brushed a little of the
dust from the keys with my pocket-handkerchief, and struck the opening
chords of Kowalski's "Marche Hongroise".

I have heard of pianos sounding like a tin dish, but this was not as
Pleasant as a tin dish by long chalks. Every note that I struck stayed
down not to rise, and when I got them up the jarring, clanging,
discordant clatter they produced beggars description. There was not the
slightest possibility of distinguishing any tune on the thing. Worthless
to begin with, it had stood in the dust, heat, and wind so long that
every sign that it had once made music had deserted it.

I closed it with a feeling of such keen disappointment that I had
difficulty in suppressing tears.

"Won't it play?" inquired Mr M'Swat.

"No; the keys stay down."

"Then, Rose Jane, go ye an' pick 'em up while she tries again."

I tried again, Rose Jane fishing up the keys as I went along. I perceived
instantly that not one had the