sucked at his pipe.

"He's going to open another shop," said Mrs. Bindle.

"Who, the devil?" enquired Bindle in surprise.

"It's going to be in Putney High Street," continued Mrs. Bindle,
ignoring Bindle's remark.

Bindle looked up at her with genuine puzzlement on his features.

"Putney 'Igh Street used to be a pretty 'ot place at night before the
war," he remarked; "it ain't exactly cool now; but I never thought o'
the devil openin' a shop there."

"I said Mr. Hearty," retorted Mrs. Bindle angrily.

"Oh! 'Earty," said Bindle contemptuously. "'Earty'd open anythink
except 'is 'eart, or a barrel of apples 'e's sellin', knowin' them to
be rotten. Wot's 'e want to open another shop for? 'E's got two
already, ain't 'e?"

"Why haven't you got on?" stormed Mrs. Bindle inconsequently. "Why
haven't you got three shops?"

"Well!" continued Bindle, "I might 'ave done so, but wot should I sell
in 'em?"

"You never got on, you lorst every job you ever got. You'd 'ave lorst
me long ago if----"

"No," remarked Bindle with solemn conviction as he rose and took his
cap from behind the door. "You ain't the sort o' woman wot's lorst,
Mrs. B., you're one o' them wot's found, like the little lamb that Ole
Woe-and-Whiskers talked about when I went to chapel with you that
night. S'long."

The news about Mr. Hearty's third venture in the greengrocery trade
occupied Bindle's mind to the exclusion of all else as he walked in
the direction of Chelsea to call upon Dr. Richard Little, whom he had
met in connection with the Temperance Fete fiasco at Barton Bridge. He
winked at only three girls and passed two remarks to carmen, and one
to a bus-conductor, who was holding on rather unnecessarily to the arm
of a pretty girl.

He found Dick Little at home and with him his brother Tom, and
"Guggers," now a captain in the Gordons.

"Hullo! Here's J.B., gug-gug-good," cried Guggers, hurling his
fourteen stone towards the diminutive visitor.

"Blessed if it ain't ole Spit-and-Speak in petticoats," cried Bindle.
"I'm glad to see you, sir, that I am," and he shook Guggers warmly by
the hand.

Guggers, as he was known at Oxford on account of his inability to
pronounce a "G" without a preliminary "gug-gug," had taken a prominent
part in the Oxford rag, when Bindle posed as the millionaire uncle of
an unpopular undergraduate.

Bindle had christened him Spit-and-Speak owing to Gugger's habit of
salivating his words.

When the men were