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Mr. Brown rose slowly from his chair. "You're just about right there, my son. Thank you," he said with elaborate politeness, as he took the book from William's reluctant hands and went over with it to a small cupboard in the wall. In this cupboard reposed an airgun, a bugle, a catapult, and a mouth-organ.
They had merely to pick up inert and unresisting beche-de-mer from among the coral five fathoms down, where the deceptive sea looked no more than ten feet deep under the squalid flatties; to smoke and jabber in idle moments; to eat and to sleep, and to listen to Mammerroo's version of the opening phrases of "The Last Rose of Summer" on a mouth-organ worn with inveterate usage to the bold brass.
'Canna you stop meddling wi' the music and come to supper? asked Hazel. The harp was always called 'the music, just as Abel's mouth-organ was 'the little music. She reached down the flitch to cut some bacon off, and her dress, already torn, ripped from shoulder to waist. 'If you dunna take needle to that, you'll be mother-naked afore a week's out, said Abel indifferently.
When we had concerts he used to give us clever imitations of the late Harry Fragson in his "Margarita" and other varieties, to the accompaniment of the mouth-organ band. He used to say: "Ze Engleesh soldier très bon ze French soldier bon mais ze Allemand no bon!" On one occasion he told us: "Après la guerre, ze Engleesh soldier beaucoup admirers ladees! Ze French soldier admirers, too.
They were a jolly, good-natured crowd, and, free from the embarrassing presence of white people, proceeded to enjoy themselves after their own fashion. Here an amorous fellow sat with his arm around a buxom girl's waist. A musically inclined individual his talents did not go far beyond inclination produced a mouth-organ and struck up a tune, to which a limber-legged boy danced in the aisle.
They debouched rather shyly, and stood on the station platform in a town consisting of a trust, a saloon, a druggist's, and a general store. The station loafers stared at them. Father would no more have dared play the mouth-organ to these gangling youths than he would have dared kiss a traffic policeman at Forty-second and Fifth Avenue.
And presently, in a very jerky fashion because of his rapid motion, Pablo piped away on his mouth-organ with "Yankee Doodle" and this was the first time that he had had the heart to play upon his beloved "instrumentito" since our passage of the lake beneath which lay the city of the dead.
"Now," he continued, "I just dassent show these boots uptown; so this time it's a dollar for the best shine." The two went palpitating at their brushes again, and the leader played his mouth-organ with brilliant unconcern.
Father's conscience was troubling him, not because he had taken food from the woman she had bestowed it with the friendly and unpatronizing graciousness of poor women but because he had been too cowardly to play the mouth-organ.
It might be worse, an' ye might be left back there yerself decoratin' about ten square yards of trench. 'Tut-tut-tut-tut' went the maxim behind them again. 'Tutt-tutt yourself, you stammer-an'-spit blighter, said the disconsolate mouth-organ loser, and 'D'you think we can chance a smoke yet? as the platoon moved out on the road and behind the shelter of some ruined house-walls.
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