een Muvver and Farver and Big Bruvver and all the whole darn
Fambly ter me, an' if ever I finks o' the blinkin' parst, it's just that
I didn't live clean and strite an'--an' _decent_, so's I could be a bit
more worvy uv yer precious kindness.... Lord! listen ter me a-torkin'
like a bloomin' sermonizer! But them's my sentiments--strite! An' so
long as yer ain't wishin ter go back to--_them_----"

"No, I'm not wishing that at all, boy," said Cleek quietly, with an odd
little smile. "So don't you worry your ginger head over such fool
notions as that. The day I want to get rid of you all--Miss Lorne,
yourself, and Mr. Narkom--is the day that sees me in my grave. And then
I'll only be waiting to wring your hands across the Big Beyond. And if
you ever mention royalties and 'specturs' and 'crash-pots' to me again,
Dollops, I'll--I'll cut you out of my will.... Finished?"

"Yessir."

"Well, then, come along upstairs and smoke a weed with me. Unless you've
something better to do. I've need of a man's company to-night, for my
mood's maudlin, and a chat over old times will straighten things out for
me."

"_Rar_ver!" Then to himself: "Missin' Miss Ailsa, like any uvver
bloomin' lovesick strain," thought Dollops to himself, with a shake of
the head. "Well, orl I kin s'y is, Dollops me lad, it's a good thing you
ain't in love yerself. You love yer tummy better'n the gels--and a
fairer deal it is, too. Fer yer _can_ tell when you're proper fed up,
and starve a bit in consequence. But the lydies!--well, they never lets
yer leave 'em alone! 'E ain't 'ad no letter this mornin'--that's wot the
trouble is, bless 'is 'eart!"

So Dollops followed Cleek upstairs to his room, and in the short
twilight of the summer evening sat with him, curled up on a cushion at
his feet, and smoked and talked and gazed at the great Castle in front
of them, almost lost in the twilight mists, like the true little
_gamin_ he was, until the lonesomeness had gone from Cleek's soul, and
the night had thrown her mantle over the sky.

Then:

"Time for you to be getting into your little 'downy', old chap," he
said, with a stretch and a yawn and a smile down into the eager young
face that rested against his knee, as a dog might do, faithfulness in
the attitude. "Or we'll be having no salmon-fishing to-morrow, for
you'll be over-sleeping yourself, and the fish will have swum to other
waters, getting tired of waiting for you. Cut along now, there's a good
boy."