pale moon mounted in the sky and
the soft night deepened over the fields.

He let them down at last at an end of grass where a few of last
year's straw ricks afforded lodging for the night. Both the men were
tired enough to be glad of the respite and they sank down in the
shadow of a rick with little talk.

"It gets me," Trotter said. "The dog's a danger. 'E ought to be
drownded."

The Signor snarled. "An' us?" he demanded. "We go to work, eh? You
pick da grass-a to make-a da hay and me I drive-a da cart, eh? Oh,
Trottair, you fool!"

"'Ere, let's 'ave some grub and stow the jaw for a bit," said
Trotter.

He had bread and meat, bought in a hurry at the tail of the village
while Bill receded down the road.

As soon as he laid it bare, Bill growled.

"T'row heem some, queeck," cried the Signor.

Bill caught the loaf and settled down to it with an appetite. Trotter
stared at him with a gape.

"Well, blow me!" he said. "'Ave we come to feedin' the bloomin' dog
before we feeds ourselves? 'As the beggar struck for that? I s'pose
'e'll be wantin' wages next."

"Oh, shutta da gab!" snapped the Signor.

"That's all very well," retorted Trotter. "But I'm an Englishman, I
am. You're only a furriner; you're used to bein' put upon. But
I'm--."

Bill growled again and rose to his feet. Trotter tossed him a piece
of meat.

All that was long ago. Now if you stray through the South of England
during the months between May and October, you may yet meet Bill and
his companions. Trotter still wears tights, but he is thinner and
much more wholesome to see; but the Signor has added a kind of shiny
servility to his courtly Italian manner.

Bill is sleek and fat.

And now, when they come to rest at noonday, you will see, if you
watch them, that before Trotter takes his boots off he feeds the dog.
And the Signor fetches him water.

VII

"PLAIN GERMAN"

Beyond the arcaded side-walks, whose square-pillared arches stand
before the house-fronts like cloisters, the streets of Thun were
channels 'of standing sunlight, radiating heat from every
cobblestone. Herr Haase, black-coated and white-waistcoated as for a
festival, his large blond face damp and distressful, came panting
into the hotel with the manner of an exhausted swimmer climbing
ashore. In one tightly-gloved hand he bore a large and bulging linen
envelope.

"Pfui!" He puffed, and tucked the envelope under one arm in order to
take off his green felt hat and