who could hardly be expected to identify Billy's variant of _Coup
d'Etat_. "Ain't he our ally?"

"That's the p'int, Mr. Moses, the very p'int to not lose sight on, or
where are we? He's got hisself made our ally for to get between him and
the Rooshians. What he's a-drivin' at is to get us to fight his battles
for him, and him to sit snug and accoomulate cucumbers like King
Solomons."

Uncle Moses felt he ought to interpose on this revision of the
Authorised Version of Scripture. "You haven't hit the word in the
middle, mate," said he, and supplied it, correctly enough. "You can keep
it in mind by thinking of them spiky beggars at the So-logical
Gardens--porky pines--them as get their backs up when wexed and
bristle."

"Well--corkupines, then! Have it your own way, old Mo! My back'd get up
and bristle, if I was some of them! Only when it's womankind, the likes
of us can't jedge, especially when French. All I can say is, him and
them's got to settle it between 'em, and if _they_ can stand his
blooming moostarsh, why, it's no affair of mine." Which was so obviously
true that old Billy need not have gone on muttering to himself to the
same effect. One would have thought that the Tuileries had applied to
him to accept an appointment as _Censor Morum_.

"What's old Billy grizzlin' on about?" said Mr. Jeffcoat, the host of
The Sun, bringing in another go of the shrub, and a modest small pewter
of mild for Uncle Mo, who was welcome at this hostelry even when, as
sometimes happened, he drank nothing; so powerful was his moral
influence on its status. In fact, the Sporting World, which drank
freely, frequented its parlour merely to touch the hand of the great
heavyweight of other days, however much he was faded and all his glories
past. Then would Uncle Mo give a sketch of his celebrated scrap with Bob
Brettle, which ended in neither coming to Time, simultaneously. Mo would
complain of an absurd newspaper report of the fight, which said the
Umpires stopped the fight. "No such a thing!" said Uncle Mo. "I stopped
Bob and he stopped me, fair and square. And there we was, come to grass,
and stopping there." Perhaps the old boy was dreaming back on something
of this sort, rather than listening to boozy old Billy's reflections on
Imperial Morality, that Mr. Jeffcoat should have repeated
again:--"What's old Billy grizzling about? You pay for both, Mr. Moses?
Fourpence halfpenny, thank you!"

"He's letting out at the Emperor of t