Page:Mary Rinehart - Man in Lower Ten.djvu/240

 "Oh, go home," said McKnight disgustedly. "I'm no Edgar Allan Poe. What's the use of coming here and asking me things if you're so particular?"

With one of his quick changes of mood, he picked up his guitar.

"Listen to this," he said. "It is a Hawaiian song about a fat lady, oh, ignorant one! and how she fell off her mule."

But for all the lightness of the words, the voice that followed me down the stairs was anything but cheery.

There was a Kanaka in Balu did dwell, Who had for his daughter a monstrous fat girl—"

he sang in his clear tenor. I paused on the lower floor and listened. He had stopped singing as abruptly as he had begun.