Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/62

54 three! Then it rang on a lower bell—“One—two—three.” A passing bell for a man! I looked at my mother—she turned away from me.

The organ flared on—the husky woman came forward to make another appeal. Then there was a lull. The man with the lump on his chest had gone inside the rag to spar with the solid fellow. The cocoanut man had gone to the “Three Tunns” in fury, and a brazen girl of seventeen or so was in charge of the nuts. The horses careered round, carrying two frightened boys.

Suddenly the quick, throbbing note of the low bell struck again through the din. I listened—but could not keep count. One, two, three, four—for the third time that great lad had determined to go on the horses, and they had started while his foot was on the step, and he had been foiled—eight, nine, ten—no wonder that whistling man had such a big Adam’s apple—I wondered if it hurt his neck when he talked, being so pointed—nineteen, twenty—the girl was licking more ice-cream, with precious, tiny licks—twenty-five, twenty-six—I wondered if I did count to twenty-six mechanically. At this point I gave it up, and watched for Lord Tennyson’s bald head to come spinning round on the painted rim of the roundabouts, followed by a red-faced Lord Roberts, and a villainous looking Disraeli.

“Fifty-one——” said my mother. “Come—come along.”

We hurried through the fair, towards the church; towards a garden where the last red sentinels looked out from the top of the holly-hock spires. The garden was a tousled mass of faded pink