Aint it ?" Helmsley laughed.
"Exactly!" he said--"You're right! Damn David suits me down to the ground!" Peke looked at him dubiously, as one who is not quite sure of his man.
"You're a rum old sort!" he said; "an' I tell ye what it is--you're as tired as a dog limpin' on three legs as has nipped his fourth in a weasel-trap.

Wheer are ye goin' on to ?" "I don't know," answered Helmsley--"I'm a stranger to this part of the country.

But I mean to tramp it to the nearest village.

I slept out in the open yesterday,--I think I'd like a shelter over me to-night." "Got any o' the King's pictures about ye ?" asked Peke.
Helmsley looked, as he felt, bewildered.
"The King's pictures ?" he echoed--"You mean---- ?" "This!" and Peke drew out of his tattered trouser pocket a dim and blackened sixpence--"'Ere 'e is, as large as life, a bit bald about the top o' 'is blessed old 'ead, Glory be good to 'im, but as useful as if all 'is 'air was still a blowin' an' a growin'! Aint that the King's picture, D.David?
Don't it say 'Edwardus VII.

D.G.