you out like a cloth—jail, hungry, outcast; yes, and nights with stars, and water shining; men like old Janin, dead men, begging on the roads—they are all in your voice, jumbled—serious barytone" The high thin recital stopped, from exhaustion.
Harry Baggs was warm to the ends of his fingers. He wiped his wet brow with a wetter hand.
"That's fine," he said impotently; "fine!"
He could hear French Janin breathing stertorously; and, suddenly aware of the other's age, the misery of their situation, he asked:
"Don't you feel good?"
"I've been worse and better," he replied. "This is bad for your throat, after singing all day in the rain. Voyou!" he repeated of himself.
Silence enveloped them, broken by the creaking of the blind man's chair and the decreasing patter of the rain. Soon it stopped and Harry Baggs went outside; stars glimmered at the edges of shifting clouds, a sweet odor rose from the earth, a trailing scent of blossoming trees expanded.
He sang in a vibrant undertone a stave without words. An uneasy form joined him; it was Runnel.
"I b'lieve my head'll burst!" he complained.
"Leave that soda-caffeine be."
He would never forget Runnel with his everlasting pain; or Dake, who lived by scaring women. . . . Great audiences and roses, and the roar of applause. He heard it now.
