Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/131

 mansion filled the distance and solidified the composition. The brilliant hoop that made the sides (silver, Dicky was convinced) was stamped in patterns, and the little brass handle was an irresistible temptation. Dicky climbed a truck and looked about him, peeping from beside the loose fence-plank. Then, seeing nobody very near, he muffled the box as well as he could in his jacket and turned the handle.

This was, indeed, worth all the trouble. "Gently Does the Trick," was the tune,and Dicky, with his head aside and his ear on the bunch of jacket that covered the box, listened; his lips parted, his eyes seeking illimitable space. He played the tune through, and played it again; and then, growing reckless, played it with the box unmuffled, till he was startled by a bang on the fence from without. It was but a passing boy with a stick, but Dicky was sufficiently disturbed to abandon his quarters and take his music elsewhere.