me like it. An' if ye put it
short, like D. David, that's just Damn David an' nothin' plainer. Aint
it?"

Helmsley laughed.

"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the
ground!"

Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.

"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as
tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a
weasel-trap. Wheer are ye goin' on to?"

"I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the
country. But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village. I slept out in
the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night."

"Got any o' the King's pictures about ye?" asked Peke.

Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.

"The King's pictures?" he echoed--"You mean----?"

"This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and
blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the
top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if
all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's
picture, D. David? Don't it say 'Edwardus VII. D. G. Britt.,' which
means Edward the Seventh, thanks be to God Britain? Don't it?"

"It _do_!" replied Helmsley emphatically, taking a fantastic pleasure in
the bad grammar of his reply. "I've got a few more pictures of the same
kind," and he took out two or three loose shillings and pennies--"Can we
get a night's lodging about here for that?"

"Av coorse we can! I'll take ye to a place where ye'll be as welcome as
the flowers in May with Matt Peke interroducin' of ye. Two o' them
thank-God Britts in silver will set ye up wi' a plate o' wholesome food
an' a clean bed at the 'Trusty Man.' It's a pub, but Miss Tranter what
keeps it is an old maid, an' she's that proud o' the only 'Trusty Man'
she ever 'ad that she calls it an '_O_tel!"

He grinned good-humouredly at what he considered his own witticism
concerning the little weakness of Miss Tranter, and proceeded to
shoulder his basket.

"_You_ aint proud, are ye?" he said, as he turned his ferret-brown eyes
on Helmsley inquisitively.

Helmsley, who had, quite unconsciously to himself, drawn up his spare
figure in his old habitual way of standing very erect, with that
composed air of dignity and resolution which those who knew him
personally in business were well accustomed to, started at the question.

"Proud!" he exclaimed--"I? What h