You'll scarce believe
it, but up to that moment there hadn't been so much as a smile to
hand round; an' to this day I don't know the man's name that started
it--for all I can tell you, I did it myself. But this I do know,
that it set off the whole gang like a motor-engine. There was a sort
of 'click,' an' the next moment--
"Laugh? I never heard men laugh like it in my born days. Sort of
recoil, I s'pose it must ha' been, after the shock. Laugh?
There was men staggerin' drunk with it and there was men rollin' on
the turf with it; an' there was men cryin' with it, holdin' on to a
stitch in their sides an' beseechin' everyone also to hold hard.
The blind men took a bit longer to get going; but by gosh, sir! once
started they laughed to do your heart good. O Lord, O Lord! I wish
you could ha' see that mild-mannered spokesman. Somebody had fished
out his spectacles for en, and that was all the clothing he stood
in--that, an' a grin. He fairly beamed; an' the more he beamed the
more we rocked, callin' on en to take pity an' stop it.
"Soon as I could catch a bit o' breath, 'Land's End next stop!'
gasped I. 'O, but this _is_ the Land's End! This is what the Land's
End oughter been all the time, an' never was yet.
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