letters of every jackanapes who has a black coat. Anything else,
Worm?'

'Ay, the folk have begun frying again!'

'Dear me! I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Yes,' Worm said groaningly to Stephen, 'I've got such a noise in
my head that there's no living night nor day. 'Tis just for all
the world like people frying fish: fry, fry, fry, all day long in
my poor head, till I don't know whe'r I'm here or yonder. There,
God A'mighty will find it out sooner or later, I hope, and relieve
me.'

'Now, my deafness,' said Mr. Swancourt impressively, 'is a dead
silence; but William Worm's is that of people frying fish in his
head. Very remarkable, isn't it?'

'I can hear the frying-pan a-fizzing as naterel as life,' said
Worm corroboratively.

'Yes, it is remarkable,' said Mr. Smith.

'Very peculiar, very peculiar,' echoed the vicar; and they all
then followed the path up the hill, bounded on each side by a
little stone wall, from which gleamed fragments of quartz and
blood-red marbles, apparently of inestimable value, in their
setting of brown alluvium. Stephen walked with the dignity of a
man close to the horse's head, Worm stumbled along a stone's throw
in the rear, and Elfride was nowhere in particular, yet