, how
this partic'lar drink goes straight to the heart an' kindles it.
Champagne has the same effect, only more so. A glass o' champagne
will keep kickin' inside o' ye for an hour maybe. With brandy 'tis
soon over and you want another go. I've noticed that often."

"You won't have a chance to notice it today." Nicky-Nan drained his
glass at a gulp, and searched again in his pockets. . . .

"And if you'll believe me," reported Mr Latter to a wondering
audience that evening, "the man pulled out of his pocket--his _right_
pocket, this time--a two-shillin' piece and a penny; and as he picks
out the two-shillin' piece, to pay me, what happens but he lets drop
another sovereign, that had got caught between the two! It pitched
under the flap o' the counter an' rolled right to my boot! 'What did
I say to en?' Well, I don't mind ownin' that for a moment it took me
full aback an' tied the string o' my tongue. But as I picked it up
and handed it to en, I says, says I, 'Mr Nanjivell,' I says, 'at this
rate I don't wonder your not joinin'-up wi' the Reserve.' . . .
What's more, naybours, I don't mind admittin' to you that after the
man had paid an' left, I slipped to the door an' keeked out after
him--an' that story of his about it bein' his rent-money was all a
flam. He went past Pamphlett's Bank, never so much as turnin' to
look at it."

CHAPTER XII.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT HIDING.

Nicky-Nan belonged, congenitally and unconsciously, to that happy
brotherhood of men--_felices sua si bona norint_--whom a little
liquor exhilarates, but even a great deal has no power to bemuse.
But what avails an immunity above your fellows, if life seldom or
never gives you opportunity to prove it?

Nicky-Nan had drunk, after long abstinence and upon a fasting
stomach, one brandy-and-soda. He was sober as a judge; he walked
straight and--bating his weak leg--firmly, yet he trod on air: he
looked neither to the right nor to the left, yet he saw nothing of
the familiar street through which he steered. For a vision danced
ahead of him. Gold in his pockets, golden sunshine now in his
veins--thanks to the brandy-and-soda,--a golden vision weaving itself
and flickering in the golden August weather, and in his ears a
sentence running, chiming, striking upon the word "gold"--
"Ding-a-ding-a-dong! 'Taty-patch a _gold_ mine--'taty-patch a _gold_
mine!" The prosaic Mr Latter had set the chime ringing, as a dull
sacristan might unloose th