Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/137

 turned gray, but in all essentials the man himself was still the genial cockney of one-and-twenty years ago.

The outer door of the sitting-room, which was next the street, was wide open to invite the air. But ever and again there rose such a fierce medley of noises from a mysterious cause a little distance off, that at last Joe got up from his chair, and waddling across the room in a pair of worn list slippers, banged the door against the sounds from the street which had the power to annoy him considerably.

Hardly had Joe shuffled back to his chair and his newspaper when the door was flung open again and an excited urchin thrust a tousled head into the room.

"'Vote for Maclean an' a free breakfast-table'!"

The law in the person of Sergeant Kelly rose from its chair majestically.

"If you ain't off—my word!"

Headlong flight of the urchin. Joe closed the door with violence and sat down again. But the incident had unsettled him. He seemed unable to fix his mind on the newspaper. And the noises in the street waxed ever louder. Now they took the form of cheers and counter cheers, now of hoots, cat-calls and shouts of derision. At last the tumult rose to such a pitch that it drew Eliza from an inner room.

The years had changed her rather more than her husband. But she was still the active, capable, bustling housewife, with a keen eye for the world and all that was passing in it.

"They are making noise enough to wake the dead." Eliza looked eagerly through the window.

"I wish that durned Scotchman hadn't set his com