O, for the Lord's
sake,' says I, 'stop beamin', and pick up your concertina an' pitch
us a tune!'
"Well, he did too. He played us 'Home, sweet home' first of all--
'mid pleasure an' palaces--an' the rest o' the young men sat around
en an' started clappin' their hands to the tune; an' then some fool
slipped an arm round my waist. I'm only thankful he didn't kiss me.
Didn't think of it, perhaps; couldn't ha' been that he wasn't
capable. It must ha' been just then your train came along.
An' about twenty minutes later, when we was gettin' our friends back
into their outfits, we heard the search-engine about half a mile
below, whistlin' an' feelin' its way up very cautious towards us.
"They was sun-dried an' jolly as sandhoppers--all their eight
of 'em--as we helped 'em on board an' wished 'em ta-ta!
The search-party couldn' understand at all what had happened--in so
short a time, too--to make us so cordial; an' somehow we didn'
explain--neither we nor the blind men. I reckon the whole business
had been so loonatic we felt it kind of holy. But the pore fellas
kept wavin' back to us as they went out o' sight around the curve,
an' maybe for a mile beyond.
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