ean, wire-drawn-looking youth, with sloping
shoulders and a thin face, and by his side was a rather short, thick-set
man, who had an odd air, no matter what he did, of proprietorship and
surveillance of the lean youth. Several other men sat about, and there was
loud laughter, under which the lean youth looked sheepishly angry.

"'Tarn't no good, Sammy, lad," some one was saying, "you a-makin' after
Nancy Webb--she'll ha' nowt to do with 'ee."

"Don' like 'em so thread-papery," added another. "No, Sammy, you aren't
the lad for she. I see her----"

"What about Nancy Webb?" asked Kentish, pushing open the door. "Sammy's
all right, any way. You keep fit, my lad, an' go on improving, and some
day you'll have as good a house as me. Never mind the lasses. Had his
glass o' beer, has he?" This to Raggy Steggles, who, answering in the
affirmative, viewed his charge as though he were a post, and the beer a
recent coat of paint.

"Has two glasses of mild a day," the landlord said to Hewitt. "Never puts
on flesh, so he can stand it. Come out now." He nodded to Steggles, who
rose and marched Sammy Crockett away for exercise.

* * * * *

On the following afternoon (it was Thursday), as Hewitt and Kentish
chatted in the landlord's own snuggery, Steggles burst into the room in a
great state of agitation and spluttered out: "He--he's bolted; gone away!"

"What?"

"Sammy--gone! Hooked it! _I_ can't find him."

The landlord stared blankly at the trainer, who stood with a sweater
dangling from his hand and stared blankly back. "What d'ye mean?" Kentish
said, at last. "Don't be a fool! He's in the place somewhere. Find him!"

But this Steggles defied anybody to do. He had looked already. He had left
Crockett at the cinder-path behind the trees in his running-gear, with the
addition of the long overcoat and cap he used in going between the path
and the house to guard against chill. "I was goin' to give him a bust or
two with the pistol," the trainer explained, "but, when we got over
t'other side, 'Raggy,' ses he, 'it's blawin' a bit chilly. I think I'll
ha' a sweater. There's one on my box, ain't there?' So in I coomes for the
sweater, and it weren't on his box, and, when I found it and got back--he
weren't there. They'd seen nowt o' him in t' house, and he weren't
nowhere."

Hewitt and the landlord, now thoroughly startled, searched everywhere, but
to no purpose. "What should he go off the place for