was a jolly young Englishman, very prone to mirth, and
this was too much for him. He turned traitor and laughed aloud.
Lawyer Ed glared angrily at him; but Jock's face underwent a peculiar
twist. He had had no notion of saying anything witty, he had been too
angry for that; but he had learned by experience that he never knew
when he was going to make a joke. He was often surprised in the midst
of a speech by a burst of laughter from his friends, Lawyer Ed
generally first. Then he would pause and survey the path he had
travelled, to find that all unconsciously he had stumbled upon a
humorous vein. So when J. P. laughed he stopped to consider. The
enemy flew to defend his "bawlin'" and there was no time to see if he
really had made a joke. But he was suspicious, and the suspicion put
him into a good humour. A sudden inspiration seized him; he caught the
book Lawyer Ed was brandishing and, opening it, laid it carefully on
the top of the gate-post.

"It's more feenished and rounded off, with the '_Aye_-men, is it?" he
enquired with deep sarcasm. "But you would not be feenishing it after
all. If ye're bound and deturmined to put a tail on the end o' the
hime, why don't ye sing awl that's in the book. You would be leaving
out a bit."

He took his glasses from their case, fitted them on, and held the book
carefully towards the electric light.

"If ye want it feenished, this is the way it should be sung."

Now, not even Mrs. Jock, who believed her husband the cleverest man in
Algonquin, could say he was a singer, and it was with a terribly
discordant wail that he lifted his voice in the melancholy words of the
hymn before him:

"_There are no pardons in the toomb,
And brief is mercy's day.
A-m-e-n-T-h-o-m-a-s-H-a-s-t-i-n-g-s--_"

The awful "Amen," drawled out to an indefinite length, with the
author's name, on the end, was irresistible. J. P. broke into a shout
of laughter. For a moment, Lawyer Ed's eyes gleamed in the darkness,
but only for a moment, then he too gave way, and when Lawyer Ed
laughed, a really good hearty laugh, it was a musical performance that
did not stop until every one within hearing was joining in the chorus.

And then Jock began to realise that he had been witty again. He paused
and bethought himself of what he had done, and he too saw how funny it
was. He did not laugh right out at first. Jock's mirth, like his wit,
was too deliberate for that. He began by uttering a l