His blood boiled at this. He refuted the charge, and became
great friends with the soldier, for the third time.

"Any objection to 'Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton'?"

"Rather not."

The soldier sang "Saucy Mr. and Mrs. Tackleton." It is really a work
for two voices, most of the sauciness disappearing when taken as a solo.
Nor is Mrs. Tackleton's name Em'lv.

"I call it a jolly rotten song," said Stephen crossly. "I won't stand
being got at."

"P'r'aps y'like therold song. Lishen.

"'Of all the gulls that arsshmart,
There's none line pretty--Em'ly;
For she's the darling of merart'"

"Now, that's wrong." He rode up close to the singer.

"Shright."

"'Tisn't."

"It's as my mother taught me."

"I don't care."

"I'll not alter from mother's way."

Stephen was baffled. Then he said, "How does your mother make it rhyme?"

"Wot?"

"Squat. You're an ass, and I'm not. Poems want rhymes. 'Alley' comes
next line."

He said "alley" was--welcome to come if it liked.

"It can't. You want Sally. Sally--alley. Em'ly-alley doesn't do."

"Emily-femily!" cried the soldier, with an inspiration that was not his
when sober. "My mother taught me femily.

"'For she's the darling of merart, And she lives in my femily.'"

"Well, you'd best be careful, Thomas, and your mother too."

"Your mother's no better than she should be," said Thomas vaguely.

"Do you think I haven't heard that before?" retorted the boy. The other
concluded he might now say anything. So he might--the name of old Emily
excepted. Stephen cared little about his benefactress's honour, but a
great deal about his own. He had made Mrs. Failing into a test. For the
moment he would die for her, as a knight would die for a glove. He is
not to be distinguished from a hero.

Old Sarum was passed. They approached the most beautiful spire in
the world. "Lord! another of these large churches!" said the soldier.
Unfriendly to Gothic, he lifted both hands to his nose, and declared
that old Em'ly was buried there. He lay in the mud. His horse trotted
back towards Amesbury, Stephen had twisted him out of the saddle.

"I've done him!" he yelled, though no one was there to hear. He rose up
in his stirrups and shouted with joy. He flung his arms round Aeneas's
neck. The elderly horse understood, capered, and bolted. It was a
centaur that dashed into Salisbury and scattered the people. In
the stable he would not dismount. "I've done him!" he yelled to