," said the stoker comfortably. "'Ow about that smell
o' roasting you kep' a sniffing as we came along, an' wot were it if not
cooked boy? Wot was it your foot crashed into when you called out awhile
back? 'Is ribs, 'im being overdone to a crisp. Wot was it you slipped
on----?"

"Stop!" shuddered the engineer. "'Old 'ard! I can't bear it."

"I can," said the stoker, following his comrade as he gingerly withdrew
from the immediate scene of the tragedy. "I could if it was twice as
much."

"It will be that to me!" sighed the engineer, seating himself upon the
parish boundary stone, over which he had stumbled in his retreat, and
sentimentally gazing at the star-jewelled skies. "Twice three pound is
six, an' twice seventeen bob is one-fourteen. Seven pounds fourteen is
wot that pore boy's crool end 'as dropped into my pocket, and I'd 'ad
those best clothes ever since I got married; an' there was only eight
an' fourpence in the piller o' the bunk, an----"

The engineer stopped short, not for lack of words, but because the
stoker was clutching him tightly by the windpipe.

"You don't durst dare to tell me," the frenzied mechanic shouted, "as
wot you went an' insured Billy too?"

"That's just wot I 'ave done," replied the half-strangled engineer. Then
as the dismayed stoker's arms dropped helplessly by his side, he added,
"you ought to be grateful, George, you 'ad no 'and in it. I couldn't
'ave enjoyed the money properly, not if you'd 'ad to be 'ung for the
boy's murder. That's wot I said to old Abey two weeks back, when I told
'im as 'ow Billy's life went more in danger than anyone else's what I
could think of, through your being such a brutal, violent-tempered,
dangerous man."

"An' wot did that old snake in the grass say to that bloomin' lie?"
demanded the stoker savagely.

"'E said life was a uncertain thing for all," sniggered the engineer,
gently. "An' I'd better 'ave a bit on the event an' turn sorrow into
joy, as the saying is. So I give Abey a shillin', bein' two weeks in
advance, an' the Company sent me the policy, an' 'ere I am in for the
money."

"Like wot I am, an' with clean 'ands for both of us," said the stoker in
a tone of cheerful self-congratulation. "I 'aven't laid a finger on that
boy, not since I insured 'im."

"Nor I ave'n't," said the engineer. "It's wonderful how I've bin able to
keep my temper since I 'ad the policy to take care of at the same time."

"Same with me," said the stoker happi