--me, too, as knows more about valetting a gent than half the
chaps as goes into service."

"Ah, well, Jerry, don't fret about it; things may get better."

"Ay, sir, they may; but then, you see, they might get wuss."

"Or half-way between. Let's sit down under this tree; I want to talk."

"Not a bad place, sir--fine view o' the Kentish hills. What money a man
might make out of chalk, if he had it in some place ready to sell, and
people would buy it! Mind my lighting a pipe, sir?"

"Mind? No; I've got pretty well hardened to people smoking about me
now. Sorry I can't offer you a cigar, Jerry."

"Pipe's good enough for such as me, sir. There," continued the man, as
he filled his briar-root, "aren't I keeping my tongue well in hand?
Haven't called you S'Richard once."

"And you must not, whatever you do."

"Well, sir," said Jerry, lighting up, and half-shutting his eyes as he
leaned back meditatively, "sometimes I don't see why not; sometimes it's
all t'other. One day I says to myself, `What's he got to mind? He's
livin', and it's all nonsense about his being dead and buried; and, as
to that business over the bill and the signature, why, he could fight
that down like a gentleman.'"

"Yes, Jerry," said Dick, dismally; "but I ran away like a coward, and
that was like a tacit confession of guilt."

"Like a what confession o' guilt?"

"Silent."

"No, sir: you said something else."

"Tacit, man--tacit."

"Oh, was it, sir. Well, if you say it was tacit, I 'spose it was.
Never heered o' that sort o' confession before; it was always open
confession. But, as I was a-saying, one day I thinks as I just said;
next day it's all the other way. I don't want to put you out o' heart,
sir; but, as you very well know, being quite a scholar, and having read
o' these things lots o' times, there's an old saying about possession
being nine points of the law. He's got possession tight, and, if you go
and tell him he must give it up now, he'll say--"

"Well, what, Jerry?"

"Don't like to tell you, sir, for fear of giving offence."

"Speak out, man; speak out, and don't say `sir' to me again while we are
equals here in the army."

"Ekals, sir? Bein' both in the ranks don't make us ekal."

"But it must not be known at present, and if you keep calling me `sir'
you may ruin my prospects."

"All right, then; I won't say it--I'll think it, and that'll make it
easier, because I can think the other the same time."