"But there weren't a sign o' them monkeys, sir; an' wot's more, there's never bin one seen in that there jungle since."
Here Craddock rose, yawned, and passed over to the cranks and handles and valves. The next instant an ear-piercing whistle rang through the dust-laden air, seeming to set it a-quiver.
"That's to rouse old Meditations, sir," he said cheerfully; "but it won't do it. 'E's petrified to 'is place, an' I shall 'ave to lift 'im out o' the way, as per usual."
From afar I could see, like a speck upon the receding ribbon of rail, an immovable figure on the Permanent Way.
[DRY GOODS]
"Mr. Blooker, sir," said the head clerk severely, "no one whose chest measurement is under thirty-two inches has any right to beat time to 'Rule, Britannia,' even when it is played by a German band in the street."
A small man whose desk stood nearest the office window, against which a City fog lay like yellow cotton wool, blushed, apologised incoherently, and returned to fair general averages.
The other clerks tittered, since this was a recurring criticism. For, though Alexander Blooker's chest measurement made active patriotism impossible, the heart within it was full of that sentiment. This was unmistakable when he boomed forth solid songs of the past, such as the "Death of Nelson" and the "Soldier's Tear," in his big solid bass voice; the more modern ditties about "beggars" and "gurls" and "kids" and "khaki" being, he assured his club, "unsuitable to his organ." And Alexander Blooker was very proud of his organ.
"Never, never, never will be slaves."
Quite unconsciously his dutiful pen punctuated each quaver and semi-quaver, though in his heart of hearts he knew that he himself had been a slave all his life. First to an old aunt who had lately died full of self-satisfaction because she left him fifty pounds out of the money she had saved from the earnings he had brought home to her all his working life; and secondly to the head clerk, Mr. Mossop. Such a kind, good----