thmic dance with a shrill whistle for accompaniment. He had a big
can of water, which he swung like a censer as he danced. The can had a
small hole pierced in the bottom, and the boy was laying the dust When
the can had yielded its last drop he took up a big broom and swept the
place rapidly, keeping up his shrill whistle meanwhile.

'Isn't it time somebody was here?' Paul asked at length.

'Manday's a saint's day,' said the boy. 'You a-comin' to work 'ere?' he
asked. Paul nodded. 'You'll know better next taime. Why, even the "O."
doesn't come before naine on a Manday.'

That was the fashionable Cockney dialect of the time. It is dead, as are
the many fashions of Cockney speech which have followed it until now,
and as the present accent will be in a year or two. It tickled Paul's
ear, and to get more of it he beguiled the boy to talk.

'Who's the "O."?' he asked

'"O."?' said the boy sharply. 'Overseer.'

'Why are they late on Monday?'

'I suppose,' said the boy, 'they stop too late at church on Sanday. They
are a pretty old ikey lot as works 'ere, and so I tell you.'

Paul began to revise his opinion as to the probable character of his
associates. But perhaps the boy was purposely misleading him. He thought
it worth while to wait and see.

'What's your name?' he asked, by way of keeping the conversation going.

'Tom Ketling,' said the boy, 'but they calls me "Tat" for short, because
I used to hang about outside Tattersall's and run errands. I picked
up most of my education there. There ain't many of 'em as can teach me
anything.' He broke off short in his confidences at the sound of a heavy
shuffling footstep on the stairs. 'Oh, my!' he cried, 'this is a marble,
and no error! How are you, Forty?'

'You here?' said the man thus hailed. 'Why, how you _are_ reforming!'
His voice had a deep chuckling husk in it, as if he had just finished an
exhausting laugh, and his lungs still panted. His face and figure were
vague in the fog and dimness of the place, but as he rolled and chuckled
nearer Paul stared at him, not without reason. He was respectably
attired at the first glance in a heavy overcoat of milled cloth, with
facings of some sort of cheap imitation fur, and a silk-hat which,
though creased in many places, was flatteringly oiled, and shone with a
lustre to which its age bequeathed no right. He had a high collar which
rose to the cheek-bone, and was severely starched, though yellow and
serrated at the edge