I wish to take my chances with my own
people, and so should you. If it is a question of going to hell,
go to hell like a gentleman with your ancestors.'
'Well, it wasn't that,' he admitted. 'I don't know that I was
exactly thinking of hell. Then there's the inquisition, too.
That's rather a cawker, you know.'
'And I don't believe you were thinking of anything in the world,'
said I--which put a period to his respectable conversion.
He consoled himself by playing for awhile on a cheap flageolet,
which was one of his diversions, and to which I owed many intervals
of peace. When he first produced it, in the joints, from his
pocket, he had the duplicity to ask me if I played upon it. I
answered, no; and he put the instrument away with a sigh and the
remark that he had thought I might. For some while he resisted the
unspeakable temptation, his fingers visibly itching and twittering
about his pocket, even his interest in the landscape and in
sporadic anecdote entirely lost. Presently the pipe was in his
hands again; he fitted, unfitted, refitted, and played upon it in
dumb show for some time.
'I play it myself a little,' says he.
'Do you?' said I, and yawned.
And then he broke down.
'Mr. Ramornie, if you please, would it disturb you, sir, if I was
to play a chune?' he pleaded.
Pages:
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296