.

"All right," he said at last; "hand over the flowers. They are not so
bad," he added, more willing to prize them now that they were his
(things do look different when they are your own, don't they?). "Here,
Humphreys, put these in a jug of water till I go home. And get this
out."

[Illustration: "'HERE, HUMPHREYS, PUT THESE IN A JUG OF WATER TILL I GO
HOME'"

[_Page 16_]

A pale young man in spectacles appeared from a sort of dark cave at the
back of the shop, took flowers and ticket, and was swallowed up again in
the darkness of the cave.

"Oh, thank you!" said Dickie fervently. "I shall live but to repay your
bounteous gen'rosity."

"None of your cheek," said the pawnbroker, reddening, and there was an
awkward pause.

"It's not cheek; I meant it," said Dickie at last, speaking very
earnestly. "You'll see, some of these days. I read an interesting Nar
Rataive about a Lion the King of Beasts and a Mouse, that small and Ty
Morous animal, which if you have not heard it I will now Pur seed to
relite."

"You're a rum little kid, I don't think," said the man. "Where do you
learn such talk?"

"It's the wye they talk in books," said Dickie, suddenly returning to
the language of his aunt. "You bein' a toff I thought you'd unnerstand.
My mistike. No 'fense."

"Mean to say you can talk like a book when you like, and cut it off
short like that?"

"I can Con-vers like Lords and Lydies," said Dickie, in the accents
of the gutter, "and your noble benefacteriness made me seek to express
my feelinks with the best words at me Command."

"Fond of books?"

"I believe you," said Dickie, and there were no more awkward pauses.

When the pale young man came back with something wrapped in a bit of
clean rag, he said a whispered word or two to the pawnbroker, who
unrolled the rag and looked closely at the rattle.

"So it is," he said, "and it's a beauty too, let alone anything else."

"Isn't he?" said Dickie, touched by this praise of his treasured
Tinkler.

"I've got something else here that's got the same crest as your rattle."

"Crest?" said Dickie; "isn't that what you wear on your helmet in the
heat and press of the Tower Nament?"

The pawnbroker explained that crests no longer live exclusively on
helmets, but on all sorts of odd things. And the queer little animal,
drawn in fine scratches on the side of the rattle, was, it seemed, a
crest.

"Here, Humphreys," he added, "give it a rub up and bring that seal