AMERICAN SKYLARKS 201 



ear no relation to anything before or after. 

 The most striking and distinguishing char- 

 acteristic of it all is the manner in which it 

 commonly hurries to a conclusion — as if 

 the clock were running down. " The hand 

 has shpped from the lever," I more than once 

 found myself saying. I was thinking of a 

 motorman who tightens his brake, and tight- 

 ens it again, and then all at once lets go his 

 grip. At this point, this sudden accelera- 

 tion and conclusion, my companion and I 

 always laughed. The humor of it was irre- 

 sistible. It stood in such ludicrous contrast 

 with all that had gone before, — so halting 

 and labored ; like a man who stammers and 

 stutters, and then, finding his tongue unex- 

 pectedly loosened, makes all speed to finish. 

 Sometimes — most frequently, perhaps — the 

 strain was very brief ; but at other times a 

 bird would sit on a stone, or a fence-post, or 

 a ridgepole, and chatter almost continuously 

 by the quarter-hour. Even then, however, 

 this comical hurried phrase would come in 

 at more or less regular intervals. I ima- 

 gined that the larks looked upon it as the 

 highest reach of their art and delivered it 



