Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/49

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A FRUITLESS CHASE
29

Although not a musician himself, Larry loved to hear a band play, and he wandered off in the direction, to join the crowd that stood close to the performers. They were playing a popular air, which had drifted hither from London by way of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, as such airs are bound to do. Larry had heard the same tune in Buffalo, ground out on a mechanical piano, and for a brief instant a spasm of homesickness passed over him.

"Music seems to be the same, no matter where a fellow goes," he thought. "What a conglomeration of people and what a lot of native children! The Kanakas must love music. Well, it's nice enough for most—ha!"

Larry broke off short, and pushed his way through the crowd to the other side of the bandstand. He had seen a face that he recognized only too well. It was the face of the foreign sailor who had been his room-mate on the night he had been robbed.

"See here, I want to talk to you," he said, catching the fellow by the sleeve of his pea-jacket.

The man turned and cast a heavy pair of eyes upon him, eyes which peered from under bushy eye-