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By some incomprehensible coördination of muscular movements he contrived to make sound simultaneously his curious armoury of instruments, and the whistling, screeching, scratching, drumming, wheezing, and tinkling of metal were appalling.
The road, too, was busy: strings of girls, fair and foul, as in less favoured countries; men bearing breadfruit; the sisters, with a little guard of pupils; a fellow bestriding a horse passed and greeted us continually; and now it was a Chinaman who came to the gate of his flower-yard, and gave us 'Good-day' in excellent English; and a little farther on it would be some natives who set us down by the wayside, made us a feast of mummy-apple, and entertained us as we ate with drumming on a tin case.
For instance, it had never before happened to John Winton to have a woman, young, charming, and altogether lovable, read him a lesson out of the book of the overcomers. He smiled inwardly and wondered what she would say if she could know to what battlefield the drumming wheels of the Limited were speeding him.
He had said nothing of having planned any flight for the next morning; but in the early morning, the chill and grey dawn, I was roused by the drumming of his engine. At once I jumped up out of bed and ran to the window. The machine was raising itself lightly and easily from the ground. I watched him wing his god-like way up through the still, soft air till he was lost to view.
Then, with a whir and drumming of dark-tipped wings, they came down, and struck the water, and the boy from Misery rose up, shooting as he came. He heard the popping of his guide's gun at his side, and saw the dead and crippled birds falling about him, amid the noisy clamor of their started flight.
Then came a day when one of these huge, amiable, living smiles blundered into our net, a smile a foot wide and six feet long, and even as he lay quietly awaiting what fate brought to great catfish, he sang, both theme and accompaniment. His whole being throbbed with the continuous deep drumming as the thin, silky walls of his swim-bladder vibrated in the depths of his body.
And then, at last, they heard their father throw down his boots and tramp upstairs in his stockinged feet. Still they listened. Then at last, if the wind allowed, they heard the water of the tap drumming into the kettle, which their mother was filling for morning, and they could go to sleep in peace.
The stranger made no move to obey. He appeared somewhat sulky. "What's your name?" Turkey Proudfoot demanded. "I'm Mr. Grouse," the stranger snapped out. "I supposed everybody in Pleasant Valley knew me. My drumming is famous." "Indeed!" said Turkey Proudfoot. "I thought it was Johnnie Green making that noise." "No wonder!" Mr. Grouse sniffed. "You're only a barnyard fowl.
The French aeroplanes were around them now, their motors drumming steadily and the aviators shouting congratulations to Lannes and Caumartin, whom they knew well. It was a friendly group, full of pride and exultation, and the Arrow and the Omnibus had a triumphant escort. Soon they were directly over the French, and then they began their descent.
Nevertheless, when Dollops had gone and the door was shut and he had the room to himself again, and, if he really did have any business on hand, there was no reason in the world why he should not have set about it, he remained sitting at the table and idly drumming upon it with his finger-tips, a deep ridge between his brows and a far-away expression in his fixed, unwinking eyes.
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