rnus--Nicky-Nan, who had
felt many qualms over filling in a date which (though accurate)
should by rights have been filled in by the Doctor, felt none at all
in adding a slight twiddle of the pen which changed "1912" into
"1913"; by which he escaped again, and again went undetected.

It had all been contrived so easily, and had succeeded so easily!
Everything said and done, his leg was worse. Any doctor alive, if
brought in, would bear witness that it incapacitated him.

Also any man, who looks ahead, will fight for the pension which alone
stands between him and the workhouse.

With such arguments Nicky-Nan had salved his conscience; and his
conscience had slept under them.

Now in a moment, with eyes fixed on the fatal handwriting, he saw
every bandage of false pretence, all his unguents of conscience,
stripped away, laying his guilt bare to the world.

An enemy was on his track--one who knew and could call up fatal
evidence.

The light in the window-pane had been growing darker for some
minutes. The morning had broken squally, with intervals of sunshine.
A fierce gust came howling up the little river between its leaning
houses and broke in rain upon the bottle-glass quarrels of the
window.

Nicky-Nan started, as though it were a hand arresting him.

CHAPTER VI.

TREASURE TROVE.

The rain--the last, for many weeks, to visit Polpier--cleared up soon
after midday. At one o'clock or thereabouts Nicky-Nan, having dined
on a stale crust and a slice of bacon, and recovered somewhat from
his first alarm (as even so frugal a meal will put courage into a
man), ventured to the porch again for a look at the weather.
The weather and the set of the wind always come first in a Polpier
man's interest. They form the staple of conversation on the
Quay-side. Fish ranks next: after fish, religion: after religion,
clack about boats and persons; and so we come down to politics, peace
and war, the manner of getting to foreign ports and the kind of
people one finds in them.

Nicky-Nan could read very few signs of the weather from his dark
little parlour. The gully of the river deflected all true winds, and
the overhanging houses closed in all but a narrow strip of sky,
prolonged study of which was apt to induce a crick in the neck.
To be sure, certain winds could be recognised by their voices: a
southerly one of any consequence announced itself by a curious
droning note which, if it westered a little, rose to a