reply. "Don't delay the
tragedy. Why should London wait? I'll keep quiet."

But his notion of keeping quiet was to retire into a corner and there
amuse himself by enacting a tragedy of his own in a hoarse whisper,
accompanied by appropriate gesture.

"Ah, ah!" I would hear him muttering to himself, "I 'ave killed 'er good
old father; I 'ave falsely accused 'er young man of all the crimes that
I 'ave myself committed; I 'ave robbed 'er of 'er ancestral estates. Yet
she loves me not! It is streeange!" Then changing his bass to a shrill
falsetto: "It is a cold and dismal night: the snow falls fast. I will
leave me 'at and umbrella be'ind the door and go out for a walk with the
chee-ild. Aha! who is this? 'E also 'as forgotten 'is umbrella. Ah, now
I know 'im in the pitch dark by 'is cigarette! Villain, murderer, silly
josser! it is you!" Then with lightning change of voice and gesture:
"Mary, I love yer!" "Sir Jasper Murgatroyd, let me avail myself of this
opportunity to tell you what I think of you--" "No, no; the 'ouses close
in 'alf an hour; there is not tee-ime. Fly with me instead!" "Never!
Un'and me!" "'Ear me! Ah, what 'ave I done? I 'ave slipped upon a piece
of orange peel and broke me 'ead! If you will kindly ask them to turn
off the snow and give me a little moonlight, I will confess all."

Finding it (much to Jarman's surprise) impossible to renew the thread of
my work, I would abandon my attempts at literature, and instead listen
to his talk, which was always interesting. His conversation was, it is
true, generally about himself, but it was none the less attractive on
that account. His love affairs, which appeared to be numerous, formed
his chief topic. There was no reserve about Jarman: his life contained
no secret chambers. What he "told her straight," what she "up and said
to him" in reply was for all the world that cared to hear. So far his
search after the ideal had met with but ill success.

"Girls," he would say, "they're all alike, till you know 'em. So long as
they're trying to palm themselves off on yer, they'll persuade you
there isn't such another article in all the market. When they've got yer
order--ah, then yer find out what they're really made of. And you take
it from me, 'Omer Junior, most of 'em are put together cheap. Bah!
it sickens me sometimes to read the way you paper-stainers talk about
'em-angels, goddesses, fairies! They've just been getting at yer. You're
giving 'em just the price