a great ally of mine; and
the last fair he was at, when he bought his sweetheart fairings, as a
right-minded shepherd should, he had purchased a lovely snake expressly
for me; one of the wooden sort, with joints, waggling deliciously in the
hand; with yellow spots on a green ground, sticky and strong-smelling,
as a fresh-painted snake ought to be; and with a red-flannel tongue,
pasted cunningly into its jaws. I loved it much, and took it to bed with
me every night, till what time its spinal cord was loosed and it fell
apart, and went the way of all mortal joys. I thought it so nice of
George to think of me at the fair, and that's why I wanted to give him
a pipe. When the young year was chill and lambing-time was on, George
inhabited a little wooden house on wheels, far out on the wintry downs,
and saw no faces but such as were sheepish and woolly and mute; ant when
he and Martha were married, she was going to carry his dinner out to him
every day, two miles; and after it, perhaps he would smoke my pipe. It
seemed an idyllic sort of existence, for both the parties concerned;
but a pipe of quality, a pipe fitted to be part of a life such as
this, could not be procured (so Martha informed me) for a less sum than
eighteen pence. And meantime--!

Then there was the fourpence I owed Edward; not that he was bothering me
for it, but I knew he was in need of it himself, to pay back Selina, who
wanted it to make up a sum of two shillings, to buy Harold an ironclad
for his approaching birthday,--H. M. S. Majestic, now lying uselessly
careened in the toyshop window, just when her country had such sore need
of her.

And then there was that boy in the village who had caught a young
squirrel, and I had never yet possessed one, and he wanted a shilling
for it, but I knew that for ninepence in cash--but what was the good of
these sorry, threadbare reflections? I had wants enough to exhaust any
possible find of bullion, even if it amounted to half a sovereign.
My only hope now lay in the magic drawer, and here I was standing and
letting the precious minutes slip by. Whether "findings" of this sort
could, morally speaking, be considered "keepings," was a point that did
not occur to me.

The room was very still as I approached the bureau,--possessed, it
seemed to be, by a sort of hush of expectation. The faint odour of
orris-root that floated forth as I let down the flap, seemed to identify
itself with the yellows and browns of the old