Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/177

Rh and was loitering and lounging along with an air which seemed to say, that neither man nor woman gave him any more delight than they had afforded the Danish prince of used-up memory. Perhaps it was in utter weariness of life that he was, as if unconsciously, employed in whistling the melody of a song, supposed to relate to a passage in the life of a young lady of the name of Gray, christian name Alice, whose heart it was another's, and consequently, by pure logic, never could belong to the singer.

Now there may be something infectious in this melody; for no sooner had the boy from Slopperton whistled the first few bars, than some person in the distance outside the walls of the asylum gardens took up the air and finished it. A trifling circumstance this in itself; but it appeared to afford the boy considerable gratification; and he presently came suddenly upon Richard in the middle of a very interesting conversation, and whispered in his ear, or rather at his elbow, "All right, general!" Now as Richard, the Emperor of the Waterworks, and the only daughter of the Pope all talked at once, and all talked of entirely different subjects, their conversation might, perhaps, have been just a little distracting to a short-hand reporter; but as a conversation, it was really charming.

Richard—still musing on the wild idea which was known in the asylum to have possessed his disordered brain ever since the day of his trial—was giving his companions an account of his escape from Elba.

"I was determined," he said, taking the Emperor of the Waterworks by the button, "I was determined to make one desperate effort to return to my friends in France"

"Very creditable, to be sure," said the damsel of the green boots; "your sentiments did you honour."

"But to escape from the island was an enterprise of considerable difficulty," continued Richard.

"Of course," said the damsel, "considering the price of flour. Flour rose a halfpenny in the bushel in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, which, of course, reduced the size of muffins"

"And had a depressing effect upon the water-rates," interrupted the gentleman.

"Now," continued Richard, "the island of Elba was surrounded by a high wall"

"A very convenient arrangement; of course facilitating the process of cutting off the water from the inhabitants," muttered the Emperor of the German Ocean.

The boy Slosh again expressed his feelings with reference to Alice Gray, and some one on the other side of the wall coincided with him.