“I can't make it out,” said Mrs. Partington one
morning, when she first moved to the city, after the
railroad ploughshare had upturned her hearth-stone.
“I can't make it out;” and she reached further out of
the window, to the imminent danger of the “embargo”
returning again to her head, or of a somerset into the
street below. She had caught the sound “Here 's haddick!”
from stentorian lungs under her window, and she
could not make out what the sounds meant.

“I wish I knowed what the poor critter was crying
about, but I thought he said he had a sick headache;
and I declare I pity the poor soul that has got such a
distressing melody as that.”

She drew in her head, like a clam, and shut down the
window, to keep out the sounds of a misery she could
not relieve.

p677-268

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