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Seated before him was a child of perhaps four or five, who laughed and prattled to the man's evident delight. Old Granger's eyes shown with a ferocious joy. "That's him!" he exclaimed in tremulously eager tones. "He's got his brat along. I wish ye could get 'em both, then there'd be an end of the miserable brood for one while. Wait, boy wait 'twel he gets to the creek afore ye shoot.
Then, to be sure, her tongue became loose, and she prattled away at a great rate, though hardly above her breath, until of a sudden her grandfather called out, in his hoarse, rattling voice, that it was time to go. Whereupon she stopped short in what she was saying and jumped up from her chair, looking as frightened as though she had been caught in something amiss, and was to be punished for it.
Then, glancing at the girl's face, he knew better. The sharp, recurrent phrase was a signal. He finished folding the afghan, and carefully replaced it on the divan from which he had borrowed it. As he did so, he prattled on. He had suddenly decided not to hear that signal. Doris, sitting transfixed and staring at him, slowly became convinced that he had not heard it. He glanced at his watch.
The heat of the Pullman seemed stifling, the odour of coal unbearable. The land was dead-brown, flat, dreary, monotonous. Leaning back with closed eyes, she longed for the deck of a liner, the strong, salt breezes, the steady pulse of the engines even for cold rain from a gray sky, sullen, shouldering seas, and the whip of spindrift on her cheeks. Beside her Nita prattled steadily.
So the good lady prattled on, placidly unconscious of her nearness to the border-line between comedy and tragedy. The clock struck eleven. "Thank you, Mr. Barracombe; I have enjoyed the game," said Mrs. Smith. "Charley will soon be here." "Let us go to the door," said Kate. "Perhaps we shall hear him." "Mr. Barracombe will go with you, Kate; I am a little afraid of the night air.
Having only arrived two days before, they had not yet been outside the harem. The sight of their domain pleased them immensely, and their young voices prattled away with a musical volubility fit to gladden the hearts of the very birds.
How often had the venerable superintendent knelt and invoked special guidance for the afflicted band from the God of orphans! Now she felt doubly orphaned. In her intellectual pride, she frequently asserted that she was "the star of her own destiny"; but this morning childish memories prattled of the Star of Bethlehem, before which she once bent the knee of adoration.
Moreover, and above all, let us remember that words count only when they give expression to deeds or are to be translated into them. The leaders of the Red Terror prattled of peace while they steeped their hands in the blood of the innocent; and many a tyrant has called it peace when he has scourged honest protest into silence.
And one day he came and prattled out to me the story of an adventure he had had at the Dents de Loup how he got caught up there with a girl. And I knew, then, that it was your adventure, too though of course he never mentioned your name. But it was as clear as daylight to me. It was as though scales had fallen from my eyes.... I knew then what I'd done.
Witty, lively people could be very nice when you were in the mood for them, but agonizing when you were not; and since it wasn't permissible to cover human beings up like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in her life.
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