An' the trouble
we've had to cover up our blessed church out o' sight of thim
marautherin' thieves! An' the intire parish gathered inside here an'
singin' good-by songs in expectation of imminent death! An' to think
'twas you holy men, all the while! But why didn't ye send word ye was
comin', St. Petroc, darlint? For it's little but sand ye'll find in
your mouths for breakfast, I'm thinkin'."
IN THE TRAIN.
I.--PUNCH'S UNDERSTUDY.
The first-class smoking compartment was the emptiest in the whole
train, and even this was hot to suffocation, because my only companion
denied me more than an inch of open window. His chest, he explained
curtly, was "susceptible." As we crawled westward through the glaring
country, the sun's rays reverberated on the carriage roof till I
seemed to be crushed under an anvil, counting the strokes. I had
dropped my book, and was staring listlessly out of the window. At the
other end of the compartment my fellow-passenger had pulled down the
blinds, and hidden his face behind the _Western Morning News_. He
was a red and choleric little man of about sixty, with a protuberant
stomach, a prodigious nose, to which he carried snuff about once in
two minutes, and a marked deformity of the shoulders.
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