Speaker 1
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TOM'S mind was made up now. He
was gloomy and desperate. He was a forsaken, friendless boy, he said;
nobody loved him; when they found out what they had driven him to,
perhaps they would be sorry; he had tried to do right and get along,
but they would not let him; since nothing would do them but to be rid
of him, let it be so; and let them blame HIM for the consequences--why
shouldn't they? What right had the friendless to complain? Yes, they
had forced him to it at last: he would lead a life of crime. There was
no choice.
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Speaker 2
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Once upon a midnight dreary,
while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume
of forgotten lore-- While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came
a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-- Only
this and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, And each
separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;--vainly I had sought to borrow From my
books surcease of sorrow--sorrow for the lost Lenore-- For the rare and
radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-- Nameless here for evermore.
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Speaker 3
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The most extraordinary thing to
my mind, of all the strange and wonderful things that happened upon
that Friday, was the dovetailing of the commonplace habits of our
social order with the first beginnings of the series of events that was
to topple that social order headlong. If on Friday night you had taken
a pair of compasses and drawn a circle with a radius of five miles
round the Woking sand pits, I doubt if you would have had one human
being outside it, unless it were some relation of Stent or of the three
or four cyclists or London people lying dead on the common, whose
emotions or habits were at all affected by the new-comers. Many people
had heard of the cylinder, of course, and talked about it in their
leisure, but it certainly did not make the sensation that an ultimatum
to Germany would have done.
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Speaker 4
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One of the greatest and
suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results
both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry,
but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday
evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of
holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin
Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the
neighborhood of Whitby. The steamers Emma and Scarborough made
trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of
'tripping' both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine
till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East
Cliff churchyard, and from the commanding eminence watch the wide sweep
of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show
of 'mares tails' high in the sky to the northwest. The wind was
then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in
barometrical language is ranked 'No. 2, light breeze.'
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