Once I
haf piano, and viola my own, yes, and now haf I diss small, laffing,
sick teufel!" He rose, and faced Heywood with a trembling, passionate
gesture. "But diss yong man, he stand by der oldt fellow!" The streaming
eyes blinked absurdly.
Behind him, with a whirring sound, a metallic voice assailed them in a
gabble of words, at first husky and broken, then clear, nasal, a voice
from neither Europe nor Asia, but America:--
"Then did I laff?
Ooh, aha-ha ha ha,
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
I could not help but laffing,
Ooh, aha-ha ..."
From a throat of tin, it mocked them insanely with squealing,
black-hearted guffaws. Heywood sat smoking, with the countenance of a
stoic; but when the laughter in the box was silent, he started abruptly.
"We're off, old chap," he announced. "Bedtime. Just came to see you were
all up-standing. Tough as ever? Good! Don't let--er--anything carry
you off."
At the gate, Wutzler held aloft his glow-worm lantern.
"Dose fellows catch me?" he mumbled, "Der plagues--dey will forget me.
All zo many shoots, _kugel_, der bullet,--'_gilt's mir, oder gilt es
dir?_' Men are dead in der Silk-Weafer Street.
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