sang it in their emulation.

13. 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-m-m! 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 in to finish him. Hum,
hum, hum-m-m! kettle not to be finished.

14. Until at last they got so jumbled together, in the hurry-
scurry, helter-skelter of the match, that whether the kettle
chirped and the cricket hummed, or the cricket chirped and the
kettle hummed, or they both chirped and both hummed, it would have
taken a clearer head than yours or mine to have decided with
certainty.

15. 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 out 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!"

This end attained, the kettle, being dead beat, boiled over, and
was taken off the fire.