Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/166

 day an' all night. He got nize speech 'bout igle an' dragon also. Me? How I know? I see it. But—he break his heart. He lig thang you 'bout your pat-ron-ages, an' hoping that you con-tinue same for aever an' aever. You got to henceforth aexcuse him; an' me—you got aexcuse me."

The company promptly recovered from the death-like horror of his own fiasco, and thundered its approval of Kohana-San. And Bob had the guilty consciousness that he liked the applause more than any one else. He reached under the table and caught again the little brown hand he found there.

"God bless you," he said; "I 'll never forget—"

But his eyes gave way to a sound. A curious rumbling detached itself from the noise of hands and voices. It caught an ear as keen for " signs " of this sort as an Indian's for those of another sort. Bob had been born to this noise, and he knew it. It grew. No one else seemed to have noticed it.

His mother, with a grave and remorseful face, was approaching him; but he did not see her.

"Bob," she was saying contritely, "you must try and forgive me. I know you did