crowd, the train pulled out for the short run from the suburbs
into Oakland. All the car was singing a score of songs at once,
and Bert, his head pillowed on Mary's breast with her arms around
him, started "On the Banks of the Wabash." And he sang the song
through, undeterred by the bedlam of two general fights, one on
the adjacent platform, the other at the opposite end of the car,
both of which were finally subdued by special policemen to the
screams of women and the crash of glass.

Billy sang a lugubrious song of many stanzas about a cowboy, the
refrain of which was, "Bury me out on the lone pr-rairie."

"That's one you never heard before; my father used to sing it,"
he told Saxon, who was glad that it was ended.

She had discovered the first flaw in him. He was tonedeaf. Not
once had he been on the key.

"I don't sing often," he added.

"You bet your sweet life he don't," Bert exclaimed. "His
friends'd kill him if he did."

"They all make fun of my singin'," he complained to Saxon.
"Honest, now, do you find it as rotten as all that?"

"It's . . . it's maybe flat a bit," she admitted reluctantly.

"It don't sound flat to me," he protested. "It's a regular josh
on me. I'll bet Bert put you up to it. You sing something now,