apings.
called _Mac_ from Macadam, and employed as mortar in
building eligible freehold tenements.

He fumbled in his pocket, but his hands were so numb that he could
scarcely capture the nimble fourpence. Why should the "nimble fourpence"
have the monopoly of agility?

"I'm Blue Ribbon, Tommy, don't yer know," said Bill, with regretful
sullenness. His ragged great-coat, indeed, was decorated with the azure
badge of avowed and total abstinence.

"Blow yer blue ribbon! Hold on where ye are, and I'll bring the bloomin'
hammer myself."

Thus growling, Tommy strode indifferent through the snow, his legs
protected by bandages of straw ropes. Presently he reappeared in the
warmer yellow of the light that poured through the windows of the old
public-house. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, which
he then thrust into the deeps of his pockets, hugging a hammer to his
body under his armpit.

"A little hot beer would do yer bloomin' temper a deal more good than
ten yards o' blue ribbon at sixpence. Blue ruin's more in _my_ line,"
observed Thomas, epigram-matically, much comforted by his refreshment.
Aid with two well-directed taps he knocked the pins out of their
sockets, and let down the backboard of the cart.

Bill, uncomforted by ale, sulkily jerked the horses forward; the
cart was tilted up, and the snow tumbled out, partly into the shallow
shore-water, partly on to the edge of the slope.

"Ullo!" cried Tommy suddenly. "E're's an old coat-sleeve a sticking out
o' the snow."

"'Alves!" exclaimed Bill, with a noble eye on the main chance.

"'Alves! of course, 'alves. Ain't we on the same lay," replied the
chivalrous Tommy. Then he cried, "Lord preserve us, mate; _there's a
cove in the coat!_"

He ran forward, and clutched the elbow of the sleeve which stood up
stiffly above the frozen mound of lumpy snow. He might well have thought
at first that the sleeve was empty, such a very stick of bone and skin
was the arm he grasped within it.

"Here, Bill, help us to dig him out, poor chap!"

"Is he dead?" asked Bill, leaving the horses' heads.

"Dead! he's bound to be dead, under all that weight. But how the dickens
did he get into the cart? Guess we didn't shovel him in, eh; we'd have
seen him?"

By this time the two men had dragged a meagre corpse out of the snow
heap. A rough worn old pilot-coat, a shabby pair of corduroy trousers,
and two broken boots through which the toes could be seen