es
freely, tells me that he doesn't mind any amount of heat, so
that it isn't accompanied by noise: but noise and heat combined
drive him crazy. I had myself noted that while the tall
buildings here excited no curiosity in him, he acted as the
veriest rubberneck under the clang and roar of the overhead
trains; and the din of Broadway, he confessed, gave him vertigo
after the soft tide of traffic that moves broad and full--
'strong without rage, without o'erflowing full'--down Tottenham
Court Road, embanked with antique furniture or colourable
imitations.

"He made this confession to me in the _entr'acte_ of a silly
vaudeville, to witness which we had been carried by an elevator
some sixteen storeys and landed on a roof crowded with palms and
funny people behaving like millionaires. In the _entr'acte_ the
band sank its blare suddenly to a sort of 'Home, Sweet Home'
adagio, and after a minute of it Farrell put up a hand, covering
his eyes, and I saw the tears welling--yes, positively--between
his fingers. He's sentimental, of course.

"I asked what was the matter? He turned me a face like poor
Susan's when at the thrush's song she beheld:"

Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide
And a river flow on through the vale of Cheapside.

He said pitiably that he wanted--that he wanted very much--to go
home; and gave as his reason that New York was too noisy for
him. . . . A sudden notion took me at this. 'If that's the
trouble,' I answered, 'one voice in this city shall cease its
small contribution to the din. . . . We will try,' I said,
'the sedative of silence.'

"For three days now I have been applying this treatment.
At breakfast, luncheon, dinner; in the street, at the theatre;
I sit or walk with him, saying never a word, silent as a shadow.
He desires nothing so little, I need not tell you. In the
infernal din of this town he looks at me and would sell his
soul for the sound of an English voice--even his worst enemy's.
It is torture, and he will break down if I don't give him a
holiday. The curious part of it is that, under this twist of
the screw, he has apparently found some resource of pluck.
He doesn't entreat, though it is killing him with quite curious
rapidity. I must give him a holiday to-morrow."