s as those of a Chinese
pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the fact
that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.

"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused Nicholas
Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a threepenny bar."

Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon induced
him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound reflection
lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man working on
the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion, and seating
himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with the two-inch
mason wielding the hammer.

"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.

"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.

"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie, drawing
a bottle from his pocket.

"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.

They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty minutes
casual conversation, introduced his plea.

"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
give a man a job?"

"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many
yards. If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end
iv th' 'eap."

The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered
in the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he
set to work.

Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself to
death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
an independence as a breaker of road metal.

Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy house
from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted rapping