they withdrew their heads. 'You'll be buried in Kensal Green, Dick,
one of these days, if it isn't closed by the time you want to go
there--buried within two feet of some one else, his wife and his
family.'

'Allah forbid! I shall get away before that time comes. Give a man room
to stretch his legs, Mr. Binkie.' Dick flung himself down on the sofa
and tweaked Binkie's velvet ears, yawning heavily the while.

'You'll find that wardrobe-case very much out of tune,' Torpenhow said
to the Nilghai. 'It's never touched except by you.'

'A piece of gross extravagance,' Dick grunted. 'The Nilghai only comes
when I'm out.'

'That's because you're always out. Howl, Nilghai, and let him hear.'

'The life of the Nilghai is fraud and slaughter, His writings are
watered Dickens and water; But the voice of the Nilghai raised on high
Makes even the Mahdieh glad to die!'

Dick quoted from Torpenhow's letterpress in the Nungapunga Book.

'How do they call moose in Canada, Nilghai?'

The man laughed. Singing was his one polite accomplishment, as many
Press-tents in far-off lands had known.

'What shall I sing?' said he, turning in the chair.

'"Moll Roe in the Morning,"' said Torpenhow, at a venture.

'No,' said Dick, sharply, and the Nilghai opened his eyes. The old
chanty whereof he, among a very few, possessed all the words was not
a pretty one, but Dick had heard it many times before without wincing.
Without prelude he launched into that stately tune that calls together
and troubles the hearts of the gipsies of the sea--

'Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu to you,
ladies of Spain.'

Dick turned uneasily on the sofa, for he could hear the bows of the
Barralong crashing into the green seas on her way to the Southern Cross.

Then came the chorus--

'We'll rant and we'll roar like true British sailors, We'll rant and
we'll roar across the salt seas, Until we take soundings in the Channel
of Old England From Ushant to Scilly 'tis forty-five leagues.'

'Thirty-five-thirty-five,' said Dick, petulantly. 'Don't tamper with
Holy Writ. Go on, Nilghai.'

'The first land we made it was called the Deadman,' and they sang to the
end very vigourously.

'That would be a better song if her head were turned the other way--to
the Ushant light, for instance,' said the Nilghai.

'Flinging his arms about like a mad windmill,' said Torpenhow. 'Give us
something else, Nilghai. You're in fine fog-horn form to