uncouthness accentuated by the sprinkling of more pretentious clothing
worn by those who had come from the train. And slowly, very slowly, this
conglomerate human cosmorama moved on, undulating queerly with the
variant movements of its component parts, snail-like, for the Flopper's
pace was slow--as strange a spectacle, perhaps, as the human eye had
ever witnessed, something of grimness, something of humor, something of
awe, something of fear exuding from it--it seemed to contain within
itself the range, and to express, the gamut of all human emotion.

On the procession went--so slowly as to be almost sinister in its
movement. And a strange sound rose from it and seemed to float and hover
over it like a weird, invisible, acoustic canopy. Three hundred voices,
men's, women's and children's, rose and fell, rose and fell--at first in
a medley of scoffings, laughter, sullen murmurs, earnest dispute and
children's prattle--a strange composite sound indeed! But as the
minutes passed and the mass moved on and stopped as the Flopper paused
to rest, and moved on and stopped and moved on again, gradually this
changed, very gradually, not abruptly, but as though the scoffings and
the laughter were dying away almost imperceptibly in the distance. For
as the Flopper stopped to rest, those near him gazed upon his face,
distorted, full of muscular distress, sweat pouring from his forehead,
pain and suffering written in every lineament--and drew back whispering
into the crowd, giving place to others until all had seen. And so the
strange sound from this strange congregation grew lower, until it was a
sort of breathless, long-sustained and wavering note, a prescience, a
premonition of something to come, a ghastly mockery or a tragedy to
befall, until it was an awe-struck murmuring thing.

Some spoke to him now and in pity offered to get him a horse and wagon,
offered even to carry him--but the Flopper shook his head.