lower, descending relentlessly like a clock-weight into my boot
soles.

Throughout my agony I never dreamed of resorting to a direct
question, much less a reproach. Even during the period of joyful
anticipation some fear of breaking the spell had kept me from any
bald circus talk in the presence of them. But Harold, who was
built in quite another way, so soon as he discerned the drift of
their conversation and heard the knell of all his hopes, filled
the room with wail and clamour of bereavement. The grinning
welkin rang with "Circus!" "Circus!" shook the window-panes; the
mocking walls re-echoed "Circus!" Circus he would have, and the
whole circus, and nothing but the circus. No compromise for him,
no evasions, no fallacious, unsecured promises to pay. He
had drawn his cheque on the Bank of Expectation, and it had
got to be cashed then and there; else he would yell, and yell
himself into a fit, and come out of it and yell again. Yelling
should be his profession, his art, his mission, his career. He
was qualified, he was resolute, and he was in no hurry to retire
from the business.

The noisy ones of the world, if they do not always shout
themselves into the imperial purple, are sure at least of
receiving attention. If they cannot sell everything at their own
price, one thing--silence--must, at any cost, be purchased of
them. Harold accordingly had to be consoled by the employment of
every specious fallacy and base-born trick known to those whose
doom it is to handle children. For me their hollow cajolery had
no interest, I could pluck no consolation out of their bankrupt
though prodigal pledges I only waited till that hateful,