wrong, then. For I tried the expression 'pon Parson Steele
only two days ago. 'This here war, sir,' I took occasion to say,
'fairly gives me the Jane.' He reckernised the word at once, an'
lugged out his note-book. 'Do you know, constable,' says he,
'that you're talkin' French, an' it's highly interestin'?'
'I make no doubt as 'twould be, sir,' says I, 'if I was to hold on
with it.' 'You don't understand,' says he. 'These Gallic turns o'
speech'--which, 'tween you an' me, I'd always thought o' Gallic as a
kind of acid--'these Gallic turns o' speech,' says he, 'be engagin'
the attention of learned men to such an extent that I think o'
writin' a paper upon 'em myself,' says he, 'for the Royal Institution
o' Cornwall at their next Summer Meetin'.' . . . I was considerably
flattered, as you may well understand. . . . But that brings me back
to my point. Parsons an' constables, as I see the matter, be men set
apart, an' lonely. So when I reads 'pon the paper that this here war
has made us all brothers, it strikes HOME, an' I feel inclined to
stop an' pass the time o' day with anybody. I don't care who he may
be."

"Then why waste time danderin' along the cliffs, here?"

Policeman Rat-it-all lowered his voice. "Between you an' me, again,"
he confessed, "I got to do my four miles or so every day, for the
sake o' my figger."

"'Tis unfortunate then," said Nicky-Nan, taking heart of grace and
lying hardily: "for you've missed a lovely dog-fight."

"Where? Whose?" Rat-it-all panted, suddenly all alive and
inquisitive.

"Dog-fights don't concern me. . . . It may ha' been Jago's
bull-terrier an' that Airedale o' Latter's. Those two seldom meet
without a scrap."

"Is it over?" A sudden agitation had taken hold of Rat-it-all's
legs.

"Very like," lied Nicky-Nan, now desperately anxious to be rid of
him. "I heard somebody callin' for snuff or a pot o' pepper--either
o' which they tell me--"

"An' you've kept me dallyin' all this while how-de-doin'?" Rat-it-all
made a bolt down the path.

Nicky-Nan watched his disappearing figure, and collapsed upon a
thyme-scented hillock in sudden revulsion from a long strain of
terror.

He sat there for a good five minutes, staring out on the open waters
of the Channel. An armed cruiser, that had been practising gunnery
at intervals during the day, was heading home from Plymouth. A tug
had come out and was fetching back her targets. Nicky-Nan arose very
deliberatel