He directed Janin forward, where the latter unwrapped his violin. A visible curiosity held the prospective buyers; they turned and faced the two dilapidated men on the road. A joke ran from laughing mouth to mouth. Janin drew his bow across the frayed strings; Harry Baggs cleared the mist from his throat. As he sang, aware of an audience, a degree of feeling returned to his tones; the song swept with a throb to its climax:
Dat boat an' row me home!'"
There was scattered applause.
"Take your hat round," Janin whispered; and the boy opened the gate and moved, with his battered hat extended, from man to man.
Few gave; a careless quarter was added to a small number of pennies and nickels. Janin counted the sum with an unfamiliar oath.
"That other," he directed, and drew a second preliminary bar from his uncertain instrument.
"Here, you!" a strident voice called. "Shut your noise; the sale's going to commence."
French Janin lowered the violin.
"We must wait," he observed philosophically. "These things go on and on; people come and go."
He found a bank, where he sat, after stumbling through a gutter of stagnant water. Harry Baggs followed and filled a cheap ornate pipe. The voice of the auctioneer rose, tiresome and persistent, punctuated by bids, haggling over minute sums for the absurd flotsam of a small house-
