Hope! Mr. Hope! Mr. Hope!" and there was a little lot of eager
applicants. First a gypsy boy with long black curls and continuous
genuflections, and a fiddle, and doleful complaints that he could not
play it, and that it was the fiddle's fault.
"Well, it is for once," said Hope. "Why, you little duffer, don't you see
the bridge is too low?"
He slackened the string, removed the bridge, fitted on a higher one,
tuned it, and handed it over.
"There," said he, "play us one of the tunes of Egypt. 'The Rogue's
March,' eh? and mizzle."
The supple Oriental grinned and made obeisances, pretended not to know
"The Rogue's March" (to the hen-house), and went off playing "Johnny
Comes Marching Home." (Bridewell to wit.)
Then did Miss Clifford's French maid trip forward smirking with a parasol
to mend: _Desolee de vous deranger, Monsieur Hope, mais notre demoiselle
est au desespoir: oh, ces parasols Anglais_!
"_Connu_," said Hope, "_voyons ca_;" and in a minute repaired the
article, and the girl spread it, and went off wriggling and mincing with
it, so that there was a pronounced horse-laugh at her minauderies.
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