d the
pert, sharp, sallow face seen over the sleeve of a large burgher's
outstretched arm. With some trouble she caught the eye of the short, pale
young man, and he instantly became a red one. To reach her was difficult,
but he dived and wriggled his way across the saloon, wedging his frail
person between the blockish bodies with a cool address that reminded her
of the first night of a "noo show" at the Camden "Theayter," and the queue
outside the gallery door.

"'Ullo, 'ullo! Thought I reckonised you, Miss." He touched his cheap
imitation Panama with swaggering gallantry, and winked. "But seeing you
eight sizes more of a toff than what you were when I previously 'ad the
pleasure, I 'esitated to tip you the 'Ow Do."

She tossed her imitation ostrich plumes in joyous coquetry.

"As if I didn't know wot you're after. Garn! You only wants to know if I
acted on the stryte about ..."

His projecting ears burned crimson.

"Well, an' suppose I do. Did she----"

"Did she wot?"

"You pipe well enough. Did she 'ave it?"

"Ain't you anxious?"

"Tyke it I am anxious. Did she? No cod?"

"Did she git your letter wot you put in the box o' choc's? O' course she
did, Mister. Wot do you tyke me for? A silly looney or a sneakin' thief?"

"I'll tell you what I tyke you for. A jolly little bit of English All
Right. Say! Do you think ..." The prominent Adam's apple jutting over the
edge of the guillotining double collar worked emotionally. "Think she'll
send an answer, eh?"

"Reckon she will; you watch out an' see!"

"You fust-clarss little brick!"

"Garn!"

"I mean it. Stryte. Next door to a angel--that's wot you are. She's the
angel. Tell 'er I said so--that's if you can, you twig? And say that when
I 'eard that nearly all the gay old crowd o' pupils 'ad gone away, day
before yesterday, I could 'a blooming well cut me throat, thinkin' she'd
gone too. Becos' when I swore in for the Town Guard, it was with the
idear--mind you rub that in!--of strikin' a blow for Beauty as well as for
Britanniar, twig?" The thin elbow in the tweed sleeve nudged her,
provoking a joyous giggle.

"I'm fly, no fear. Are you to 'ave a uniform, an' all like that?"

His face fell. "The kit don't run to much beyond a smasher 'at an'
puttees, but they're the regular Service kind, an' then there's the
bandolier--an' the gun. She ain't the newest rifle served out to Her
Majesty's Army, not by twenty years. Condemned Martini, a chap says, who's
in