on waste. Then he struck and applied a match, saw the flame leap
and roar amongst the combustibles, filled the stoker's squat tea-kettle
with water from the green barrel, put in a generous handful of Tarawakee
tea, and, innocent of refinements in tea-making, set it on to boil.

"George is more spitefuller nor wot Alfred is," Billy Beesley murmured,
as the kettle sent forth its first faint shrill note. Then he added with
a poignant afterthought, "But Alfred is a bigger man than wot George
be."

The stimulus of this reflection aided cerebration. Possessed by an
original idea, Billy rubbed the receptacle containing it, and his mouth
widened in an astonished grin. A supplementary brazier, temporarily
invalided by reason of a hole in the bottom, hung at the back of the
living-van. The engineer possessed a kettle of his own. Active as a
monkey, the small figure in the flapping coat and the baggy trousers
sped hither and thither. Two hearths were established, two fires blazed,
two tea-kettles chirped. Close beside the stoker's brazier a bacon pie
in a brown earthen dish nestled to catch the warmth, a tin of Canadian
salmon, which Billy had neglected to open, leaned affectionately against
the other. Suddenly the engineer's kettle boiled over, and as Billy
hurried to snatch it from the coals, the salmon-tin exploded with an
awe-inspiring bang, and oily fragments of fish rained from the bounteous
skies.

"He'll say I did it a purpose, Alfred will!" the aggrieved boy wailed,
as he collected and restored to the battered tin as much of its late
contents as might be recovered. While on all fours searching for bits
which might have escaped him, and diluting the gravy which yet remained
in the tin with salt drops of foreboding, a scorching sensation in the
region of the back brought his head round. Then he yelled in earnest,
for the roaring flame from the other brazier had set the quickset hedge,
inflammable with drought, burning as fiercely as the naphtha torch of a
fair-booth, while a black patch, widening every moment, was spreading
through the dry, white grasses under the clumsy wheels of the
living-van, whose brown painted sides were beginning to blister and
char, as Billy, rendered intrepid by desperation, grabbed the broken
furnace-rake handle, usually employed as a poker, and beat frantically
at the encroaching fire. As he beat he yelled, and stamped fiercely upon
those creeping yellow tongues. There was fire from side to sid