oom. The
other lads were gathered round him in respectful silence. Albert was
busy, but he was not engaged as usual in telling his admirers tall
stories of the Meeting and his own prowess in getting the blind side of
mugs and dandy duds. He had a bit of chalk in his hand and was drawing
on the door. There was no doubt the lad could draw. Monkey Brand indeed
asserted that there were few things Albert Eddud could not do if he
tried--"and the wusser the thing the better he does it." Now he was
drawing the head of a man with a huge and bulbous nose. Boy caught a
glimpse of it as she entered the yard, and recognised it in a flash. It
was the face of the hero of a comic paper the lads took in: a paper of
which she disapproved, although with her instinctive sense for
government, she did not think it wise to suppress it. _Ally Sloper_ its
name; its subject, ladies in bathing costume.

Albert, rapt in his labour, was working with the fury of the artist. He
finished with a flourish. The lads crowded round to look. Foremost
amongst them were Jerry, a youth with corrugated brow and profoundly
sagacious air; and Stanley, dark and sleek and heavy of face, in whom
sloth and sleep and insolence seemed to war. Jerry clearly should have
been a philosopher, and Stanley an emperor.

Monkey Brand was in the habit of referring, not without bitterness, to
the pair and Albert as "them three." He believed them capable of
anything, and was not far out in his belief. Jerry, the thinker,
planned the crimes; Albert, the man of action, committed them; and
Stanley, the stupid, bore the blame and paid the price. When they were
not at each other's throats, the three hung very close together.

Albert Edward now thrust his friends aside.

"Half a mo'!" he cried, and scrawled in dashing hand beneath the
portrait the legend:

_Ally Slo's
Got a nose
Like our Jose'.
S._

Albert stood back with folded arms to admire his masterpiece. The beauty
of it over-awed his naturally irreverent spirit.

"'Ush!" he said.

But a rude voice burst in on his silent rapture.

"Albert!" it called peremptorily.

The artist turned round to see Boy leading the old mare into the yard.

"Yes, Miss."

"Take Mr. Silver's pony."

"Yes, Miss."

"Jerry, put Billy Bluff on the chain. Stanley, put that chestnut's
muzzle on."

She led the old mare to the gate that opened on the Paddock Close.

Silver followed her, and lo