Eli's Children

"Eh? What?" "I say, why don't you give it up quietly?" "Speak up; I'm a little hard of hearing." "I say, why don't you give it up quietly?" roared the speaker to a little bent old man, with a weak, thin, piping voice, and a sharp look that gave him somewhat the air of a very attenuated sparrow in a severe frost, his shrunken legs, in tight yellow leather leggings, seeming to help the idea.