“I don’t advise him to ask _me_. And, look here! I want to know who it was. If he’s bringing in somebody in the dark, on the sly, to put them boys’ noses out!--you never can tell what a foreign fellow’s up to. I don’t know a voice like that, not in the Abbey. If he’s smuggling in a new boy, without no warning, to take the bread out of folks’ mouths, by George, I won’t stand it! I’ll go to the Dean about it! Tommy’s cried hisself hoarse. He couldn’t eat his breakfast, poor little beggar! and he’s got ‘Hear my prayer’ this morning. Hanged if I don’t think it’s all a scheme against me and my boy! That ain’t a child’s voice. There’s a touch of falsetto in it, if I know anything about music. It won’t last, not a month. I’ve heard them come out like that, that you could hear them a mile off, just before they break.” “Then you were there, Mr. Rowley?” said old Pick; “I thought there was only the folks from the Deanery there.” “I wasn’t there. Catch me in the Abbey when I’m not wanted! I have enough of it, practising and bothering from morning till night. The Signor’s very good for the organ. I don’t say nothing against that; but he don’t know much about Englishmen. You do no justice to your voice when you never give yourself no rest; but he can’t understand that. I heard it outside. Pick, there’s a good old fellow, you know what it is yourself, and I’m sure we’re always glad to see you when you look in at our little place. Tell us what’s up--who is it? Tommy will have to go in time. I don’t say nothing against that. But he’s not twelve, poor little beggar, and his voice is as clear as a bell. He’s fit to fret himself into a fever if they take the first solos from him. Tell us what the Signor’s up to, and who he’s got coming in? I say it’s a shame,” said the tenor, rising again into vehemence. “Them that is on the spot, and belonging to the place, and bred up in the Abbey all their lives, hanged if they should be turned out for strangers! I don’t see the fun of that.”