ar afield afore. What with your sedentary
figure an' the contempt I've heard 'ee use about soldiers--"

Mr Latter, as he straightened himself up, appeared to be confused.
He was also red in the face, and breathed heavily. Nicky-Nan noted,
but innocently misread, these symptoms.

"Good friable soil you got here," said Mr Latter, recovering a
measure of self-possession. "Pretty profitable little patch, unless
I'm mistaken."

"It was," answered Nicky. "But though, from your habits, you're
about the last man I'd have counted on findin' hereabouts, I'm main
glad, as it happens. A superstitious person might go so far as to
say you'd dropped from heaven."

"Why so?"

Nicky-Nan cast a glance over his shoulder. "We're neighbours here?"

"Certainly," agreed Mr Latter, puzzled, and on his defence.

"Noticed anything strange about Rat-it-all, of late?"

"Rat-it-all?"

"You wish friendly to him, eh? . . . I ask because, as between the
police and licensed victuallers--" Nicky-Nan hesitated.

"You may make your mind easy," Mr Latter assured him. "Rat-it-all
wouldn't look over a blind. I've no complaint to make of Rat-it-all,
and never had. But what's happened to him?"

"I wish I knew," answered Nicky-Nan. "I glimpsed him followin' me,
back along the path; an' when I turned about for a chat, he dodged
behind a furze-bush like as if he was pouncin' on some valuable
butterfly. 'That's odd,' I thought: for I'd never heard of his
collectin' such things. But he's often told me how lonely a
constable feels, an' I thought he might have picked up wi' the habit
to amuse himself. So on I walked, waitin' for him to catch me up;
an' by-an'-by turned about to look for en. There he was, on the
path, an' be damned if he didn' dodge behind another bush! I wonder
if 'tis sunstroke? It always seemed to me those helmets must be a
tryin' wear."

"I dunno. . . . But here he is! Let's ask him," said Mr Latter as
Policeman Rat-it-all appeared on the ridge with body bent and using
the gait of a sleuth-hound Indian. [There is no such thing as a
sleuth-hound Indian, but none the less Rat-it-all was copying him.]

"Hullo, Rat-it-all!"

The constable straightened himself up and approached with an affected
air of jauntiness.

"Why, whoever would ha' thought to happen on _you_ two here?" he
exclaimed, and laughed uneasily.

"Sure enough the man's manner isn't natural," said Mr Latter to
Nicky-Nan. "Speakin' as a publican, t