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walked out of a shadow towards the middle of the platform, the most
insignificant little pigmy, away there in the distance, a little black
figure with a pink dab for a face,--in profile one saw his quite
distinctive aquiline nose--a little figure that trailed after it most
inexplicably--a cheer. A cheer it was that began away there and grew and
spread. A little spluttering of voices about the platform at first that
suddenly leapt up into a flame of sound and swept athwart the whole mass
of humanity within the building and without. How they cheered! Hooray!
Hooray!
No one in all those myriads cheered like the man from prison. The tears
poured down his face, and he only stopped cheering at last because the
thing had choked him. You must have been in prison as long as he before
you can understand, or even begin to understand, what it means to a man
to let his lungs go in a crowd. (But for all that he did not even
pretend to himself that he knew what all this emotion was about.)
Hooray! O God!--Hoo-ray!
And then a sort of silence. Caterham had subsided to a conspicuous
patience, and subordinate and inaudible persons were saying and doing
formal and insignificant things. It was like hearing voices through the
noise of leaves in spring. "Wawawawa---" What did it matter? People in
the audience talked to one another. "Wawawawawa---" the thing went on.
Would that grey-headed duffer never have done? Interrupting? Of course
they were interrupting. "Wa, wa, wa, wa---" But shall we hear Caterham
any better?
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