Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/142

128 all too black to me, he sang a favourite of his, the pathetic ballad of two small children evidently begging in a business thoroughfare:

It was a fair crumpler in my then mood. It made me wish to be out of North America—made me long for London; London with a yellow fog and its greasy pavements, where one knew what to apprehend. I wanted him to stop, but still he atrociously sang in his high, cracked voice:

I dare say I should have rushed madly into the night had there been another verse, but now he was still. A moment later, however, he entered my room with the suggestion that I stroll about the village streets with him, he having a mission to perform for Mrs. Effie. I had already heard her confide this to him. He was to proceed to the office of their newspaper and there leave with the press chap a notice of our arrival which from day to day she had been composing on the train.

"I just got to leave this here piece for the Recorder," he said; "then we can sasshay up and down for a while and meet some of the boys."