first exercised Champion's logical mind by inquiring what the blank
dash the two adjectival criminals and the qualified nipper thought they
were doing to the asterisked road.

He received no encouragement. Robin was now engaged with a hammer and
chisel in cutting a sort of touch-line all round the encampment, while
Dicky did not cease manfully to delve with the pick-axe in the pit which
he had digged for himself. For a long time they turned a deaf ear to the
anxious inquiries of their interlocutor.

But there are limits to long-suffering. Coaldust's witticisms increased
with his audience, and at last Dicky turned to Robin and cried, with a
really admirable maintenance of character and accent--

"'Ere, Scotty, come and give this bloke one in the neck. 'E's askin' for
it!"

Robin deliberately suspended operations, rose heavily to his feet, and
cleared his throat. Then he turned upon the alcoholic Coaldust. I
strained my ears. Surely _he_ was not going to talk Cockney!

Far from it. He stuck to his last.

"See here, ma man," he roared, in a voice that made the crowd jump, "are
ye for a ding on the side o' the heid?"

Coaldust capitulated with alacrity.

"No offence, 'Orace!" he remarked genially. "You an' me was always pals.
Put it there!" He extended an ebony hand, which Robin solemnly shook and
returned to his work.

Whatever my three friends were up to, it is possible that they might now
have been left in peace for some time; for the crowd, seeing no chance
of further sport from Coaldust, began to melt away. But a fresh
character entered the scene to keep alive the nagging interest of the
drama.

My first intimation that something new was afoot came from an errand-boy
on the edge of the crowd, who, addressing a lady or ladies unseen,
suddenly expressed a desire to be chased.

All heads were now turned down the street, and there, approaching with
rather faltering steps, carrying a red cotton bundle and a tea-can, I
beheld--one of my sisters-in-law!

Postulating Dicky, I presumed it was Dilly, and I began to piece
together in my mind the plot of this elaborate comedy. Evidently Dicky,
Robin, and Gerald had decided--for a bet, or because they were dared, or
possibly with a view to giving Champion's Bill a leg-up by a practical
demonstration of the crying need for it--to dress themselves up as
workmen and come and "do a turn," as they say in the music halls, to the
discomfort of his Majesty's lieges and the c