thick
gutturals of the Taal? "I shall walk past the Convent to-morrer in kit and
'cetras, on the charnce of 'Er seein' me. Two sharp. And, look 'ere, Miss,
you've done me a good turn. And--no larks!--if ever I can do you
another--trust me. Stryte--I mean it! You ask chaps 'oo know me if Billy
Keyse ever went back on a pal?"

She swayed her hips, and disclaimed all obligation. But, garn! he was
gittin' at 'er, she knew!

"I ain't; I mean it! You should 'ave 'arf me 'eredittary estates--if I 'ad
any. As I 'aven't, say wot you'll drink? Do, Miss, to oblige yours truly,
W. Keyse, Esquire."

W. Keyse plunged a royal, reckless hand into the pocket of his tweed
riding-breeches, bought against the time when he should bestride something
nobler than a bicycle, and produced a half-sovereign. He owed it to his
landlady and the rest, the coin that he threw down so magnificently on the
shiny counter, but you do not treat your good angel every day....
Emigration Jane bridled, and swayed her hips still more. His largeness was
intoxicating. One had dreamed of meeting such young men.

"Port or sherry? Or a glass of cham, with a lump o' ice in for a cooler?
They keep the stuff on draught 'ere, and not bad by 'arf for South Africa.
'Ere, you, Mister! Two chams for self and the young lydy, an' look
slippy!"

The brimming glasses of sparkling, creaming fluid, juice of vines that
never grew in the historic soil of France, were passed over the bar. A
miniature berg clinked in each, the coldness of its contact with the
glowing lip forcing slight rapturous shrieks from Emigration Jane.

"We'll drink 'Er 'ealth!" W. Keyse raised his goblet. "And Friends at 'Ome
in our Isle across the Sea!"

He drank, pleased with the sentiment, and set down the empty glass.

The Dutch bar-keeper leaned across the counter, and tapped him on the arm
with a thick, stubby forefinger.

"Mister Engelschman, I think you shall best go out of here."

"Me? Go out? 'Oo are you gettin' at, Myn'eer Van Dunck?" swaggered W.
Keyse. And he slipped one thin, freckled hand ostentatiously under his
coat of shoddy summer tweed. A very cheap revolver lurked in the
hip-pocket of which Billy was so proud. In his third-floor back
bed-sitting-room in Judd Street, London, W.C., he had promised himself a
moment when that hip-pocket should be referred to, just in that way. It
was a cheap bit of theatrical swagger, but the saloon was full, not of
harmless theatrical pretences, b