s a darlin', but go on with your
breakfast." But Mrs Penhaligon heaved a sigh that was answer enough.

"Well, I wanted to know, because down by Quay-end I heard old Aun'
Rundle say it made her feel like the bottom of her stomach was
fallin' out. I suppose it takes people differ'nt as they get up in
years."

"I know azackly where I feel it!" announced 'Biades. "It's _here_."
He set down his spoon and pointed a finger on the third button of his
small waistcoat. "An' it keeps workin' up an' down an' makin' noises
just like Billy Richard's key-bugle."

"Then it's a mercy it ben't real," commented his brother.

"'Biades is right, all the same." 'Beida regarded the child and
nodded slowly. "It do feel very much like when you hear a band
comin' up the street. It catches you--" She broke off and laid
her open palm on her chest a little below the collar. "An' then it's
creepin' up the back of your legs an' along your arms, an' up your
backbone, right into the roots o' your hair. But the funniest thing
of all is, the place looks so differ'nt--an' all the more because
there's so little happenin' differ'nt. . . . I can't tell just what I
mean," she owned candidly, turning to Nicky-Nan; "but it don't seem
we be _here_ somehow, nor the houses don't seem real, somehow.
'Tis as if your real inside was walkin' about somewhere else,
listenin' to the band."

"Nonsense your tellin'," 'Bert interrupted. "Father's put on his
uniform. How can you make it that things ben't differ'nt, after
that?"

"An' _he_'s here!" 'Biades nodded, over his half-lifted spoon, at
Nicky-Nan.

"Oh!" said 'Bert, "that isn' because of the War. That's to say
Good-bye, because he's turnin' out this week."

"For goodness, children, eat up your meal, an' stop talkin'!"
Mrs Penhaligon returned from the hearth to the table and set down a
dish of eggs and sizzling bacon. "Wherever you pick up such notions!
. . . You must excuse their manners, Mr Nanjivell."

But Nicky-Nan was staring at young 'Bert from under fiercely bent
eyebrows.

"Who told you that I was turnin' out this week?" he demanded.

"I heard Mr Pamphlett say it, day before yesterday. He was round
with Squinny Gilbert--"

"Fie now, your manners get worse and worse!" his mother reproved him.
"Who be you, to talk of the builder-man without callin' him
'Mister'?"

"Well then, he was round with Mister Squinny Gilbert, lookin' over
the back o' the house. I heard him say as you was