"By jingo, Bill Hammersley, you've
beat me! Ha, ha! That WAS a jump! What say?" Silence once more. "You say
you can do even better than that? Now, Bill, don't brag. Oh! you say
you've often jumped farther? Oh! you say that was up in Scotland, where
you had a spring-board? Oho! All right; let's see how far you can jump
when you really try. There! Heels on the walk again. That's right; swing
your arms. One--two--three! THERE you go!" Another silence. "ZING! Well,
sir, I'll be e-tarnally snitched to flinders if you didn't do it THAT
time, Bill Hammersley! I see I never really saw any jumping before in
all my born days. It's eleven feet if it's an inch. What? You say you--"
I heard no more, for Miss Apperthwaite, her face flushed and her eyes
shining, beckoned me imperiously to follow her, and departed so
hurriedly that it might be said she ran.
"I don't know," said I, keeping at her elbow, "whether it's more like
Alice or the interlocutor's conversation at a minstrel show."
"Hush!" she warned me, though we were already at a safe distance, and
did not speak again until we had reached the front walk. There she
paused, and I noted that she was trembling--and, no doubt correctly,
judged her emotion to be that of consternation.
"There was no one THERE!" she exclaimed. "He was all by himself! It was
just the same as what you saw last night!"
"Evidently."
"Did it sound to you"--there was a little awed tremor in her voice that
I found very appealing--"did it sound to you like a person who'd lost
his MIND?"
"I don't know," I said.
Pages:
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27