oam from the brim of a tankard of ale which was set on the table in
front of him. "'E alluz takes just what cooms along easy loike, do
Mizter Dubble!"

There followed a silence. It was instinctively felt that the discussion
was hardly important enough to be continued. Moreover, every man in the
room was conscious of a stranger's presence, and each one cast a furtive
glance at Helmsley, who, imitating Peke's example, had taken off his
hat, and now sat quietly under the flickering light of the oil lamp
which was suspended from the middle of the ceiling. He himself was
intensely interested in the turn his wanderings had taken. There was a
certain excitement in his present position,--he was experiencing the
"new sensation" he had longed for,--and he realised it with the fullest
sense of enjoyment. To be one of the richest men in the world, and yet
to seem so miserably poor and helpless as to be regarded with suspicion
by such a class of fellows as those among whom he was now seated, was
decidedly a novel way of acquiring an additional relish for the varying
chances and changes of life.

"Brought yer father along wi' ye, Matt?" suddenly asked a wizened little
man of about sixty, with a questioning grin on his hard weather-beaten
features.

"I aint up to 'awkin' dead bodies out o' their graves yet, Bill Bush,"
answered Peke. "Unless my old dad's corpsy's turned to yerbs, which is
more'n likely, I aint got 'im. This 'ere's a friend o' mine,--Mister
David--e's out o' work through the Lord's speshul dispensation an' rule
o' natur--gettin' old!"

A laugh went round, but a more favourable impression towards Peke's
companion was at once created by this introduction.

"Sorry for ye!" said the individual called Bill Bush, nodding
encouragingly to Helmsley. "I'm a bit that way myself."

He winked, and again the company laughed. Bill was known as one of the
most daring and desperate poachers in all the countryside, but as yet he
had never been caught in the act, and he was one of Miss Tranter's
"respectable" customers. But, truth to tell, Miss Tranter had some very
odd ideas of her own. One was that rabbits were vermin, and that it was
of no consequence how or by whom they were killed. Another was that
"wild game" belonged to everybody, poor and rich. Vainly was it
explained to her that rich landowners spent no end of money on breeding
and preserving pheasants, grouse, and the like,--she would hear none of
it.

"Stuff and nons