"Who's singing?" he demanded.
"That's French Janin," Peebles told Harry Baggs; "he's blind."
"I am," the latter responded--"Harry Baggs."
The man came closer, and Baggs saw that he was old and incredibly worn;
his skin clung in dry yellow patches to his skull, the temples were
bony caverns, and the pits of his eyes blank shadows. He felt forward
with a siccated hand, on which veins were twisted like blue worsted
over fleshless tendons, gripped Harry Baggs' shoulder, and lowered
himself to the ground.
"Another song," he insisted; "like the last. Don't try any cheap show."
The boy responded immediately; his serious voice rolled out again in a
spontaneous tide.
"'Hard times,'" Harry Baggs sang; "'hard times, come again no more.'"
The old man said: "You think you have a great voice, eh? All you have
to do to take the great roles is open your mouth!"
"I hadn't thought of any of that," Baggs responded. "I sing because--
well, it's just natural; no one has said much about it."
"You have had no teaching, that's plain. Your power leaks like an old
rain barrel. What are you doing here?"
"Tramping."
Harry Baggs looked about, suddenly aware of the dark pit of being into
which he had fallen. The fires died sullenly, deserted except for an
occasional recumbent figure. Peebles had disappeared; Dake lay in his
rags on the ground; Runnel rocked slowly, like a pendulum, in his
ceaseless pain.
"Tramping to the devil!" he added.
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