Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/87

Rh   O fear not in a world like this, And thou shalt know ere long Know, how sublime a thing it is To suffer and be strong."—

and wrote in it.

"From an unknown Friend," and posted it to care of her poor husband to be given to her.

They always called me "Bunty Blue," those voices through the wall, and they used to go shopping with me with great delight and what was very annoying sometimes, suggest things for me to give David for his tea and then I found David didn't like them and couldn't eat them. And then they used to suggest things David might do to add to his income. And David did not like it and wouldn't take any of the suggestions.

But Tony was very funny himself sometimes.

After I had told him a little about myself we would have tea and while he was talking one night he ate the egg I had put for him on his plate, and when he had finished it he stretched across the table and took mine.

He was quite absent-minded I could see, and I didn't like to say anything, though I looked across in horror at seeing my meal taken from me.

Poor Tony! he was always trying to find the cause of my "voices" and to help me to lose the trouble.

All kinds of different people seemed to be in the underground passages behind me at different times and each one who was there made me see things in a different light, and each time more clearly.

One night I heard a laugh behind me and some nonsensical talk.

"Who are you?" I asked. "I know what you're up to down in that passage. You're writing—What are you writing?"

From the back somewhere, without leaving his writing came the voice:

"I'm catching things as they come, Bunty Blue. They float down and I catch them and get 'copy.'"

"What! You're a reporter?"

"Yes, and if you like to claim half profits, you can," he threw at me as he sat there by the light of a lantern.

I imagined him there.