should it be Samuel Penhaligon, when you know as well as I do
that he's gone to the War? No: the man, I regret to say, was
Nicholas Nanjivell."

"Nicky-Nan? . . . Oh, come, ma'am, I say! Why, what capers could _he_
been cuttin'?"

"I feel justified in speaking of him as her partner, seeing that he
avowed as much. She was living under his protection, he said, and he
would see that she didn't come to want. He had even the effrontery
to assure me that he had made an arrangement with Penhaligon.
But that, I feel sure, was a shameless lie, and my ears tingle to
hear myself repeating it. 'Twas hard enough to keep one's temper
with the man standing there and talking big as my lord, when the
Almighty knows if for these two years he's seen the colour of a
sovereign. . . . Eh? What ails you?" she demanded, as Mr Latter, who
had been testing the point of the auger with his thumb, gave a sudden
and violent start.

"Thank 'ee, ma'am--there's no blood drawn, as it happens," said Mr
Latter, "but 'twas nibby-jibby,[1] the way you outed with it, and
took me of a heap. If you'd ever happened now to stand up to a man
and him gettin' his fist full on your wind--no, you _wouldn't_, o'
course. But 'twas a knock-out. . . . 'Nicky-Nan,' says you, 'an'not
a sovereign to bless hisself'--Why the man's fairly _leakin_
sovereigns!--sheddin' 'em about like fish-scales!"

"Mr Latter--are you _intoxicated?_"

"I wish I was, ma'am. 'Twould be some kind of an explanation, though
mebbe not the most satisfactory. . . . When I tell you that the man
walked into my bar, three days since, an' scattered sovereigns all
over my floor! When I tell you he couldn' pull out a han'kerchief to
blow his nose but he _sneezed_ sovereigns!"

Mrs Polsue gasped.

"--When I tell you," Mr Latter pursued, flourishing his auger and
rapping it on the flat of his palm, "that one o' these soldiers--a
Corporal too, and named Sandercock--was talkin' in my bar not two
hours ago, an' says he, 'You've a man called Nanjivell lives here by
the bridge.' 'Ay,' says I. 'Bit of an eccentric?' says he. 'How?'
says I. 'The way he drops his gold about,' says the Corporal.
'Ho?' says I, prickin' up my ears, but not choosin' to be talkative
with a stranger. 'So folks have been tellin' you that story
already?' says I. '_Tellin_ me?' says he. 'Why, I see'd it with my
own eyes!' 'Come,' thinks I to myself, 'this fellow's a bra' bit of
a liar, wherever he hails from.' 'Wit