gun, if it had fallen a victim on the spot, and chirruped its
little body into fifty pieces it would have seemed a natural and
inevitable consequence for which it had expressly labored." . . .

"There was all the excitement of a race about it. Chirp,
chirp, chirp! Cricket a mile ahead. Hum, hum, hum-m-m! Kettle
making play in the distance, like a great top. Chirp, chirp,
chirp!--Cricket round the corner. Hum, hum, hum! Kettle
sticking to him in his own way, no idea of giving in. Chirp,
chirp, chirp ! Cricket fresher than ever. Hum, hum, hum-m-m!
Kettle slow and steady. Chirp, chirp, chirp! Cricket going to
finish him. Hum, hum, hum! Kettle not to be finished. Until at
last, they got so jumbled up together, in the hurry-skurry,
helter-skelter of the match, that whether the Kettle chirped or
the Cricket hummed, or the Cricket chirped and the Kettle hummed,
or the Cricket chirped and the Kettle hummed, or the both chirped
and both hummed, it would have taken a clearer head than yours or
mine to have decided with anything like certainty. But of this
there is no doubt, that the Kettle and the Cricket, at one and
the same moment, and by some power of amalgamation best known to
themselves, sent each his fireside song of comfort streaming into
a ray of the candle that shone through the window, and a long way
down the lane. And this light, bursting on a certain person who
on the instant, approached towards it through the gloom,
expressed the whole thing to him, literally in a twinkling, and
cried, 'Welcome home, old fellow! Welcome home, my boy!"



CHAPTER IX.