Chapter 2 - Page 2

cart was driven down to the water-edge, and was there upturned, with much shouting and cracking of whips on the part of the men engaged, and with a good deal of straining, slipping, and stumbling on the side of the horses.

One of the men jumped down, and fumbled at the iron pins which kept the backboard of the cart in its place.

"Blarmme, Bill," he grumbled, "if the blessed pins ain't froze."

Here he put his wet fingers in his mouth, blowing on them afterward, and smacking his arms across his breast to restore the circulation.

The comrade addressed as Bill merely stared speechlessly as he stood at the smoking head of the leader, and the other man tugged again at the pin.

"It won't budge," he cried at last. "Just run into the Hit or Miss at the corner, mate, and borrow a hammer; and you might get a pint o' hot beer when ye're at it. Here's fourpence. I was with three that found a quid in the Mac,* end of last week; here's the last of it."

* A quid in the Mac--a sovereign in the street-scrapings. called Mac from Macadam, and employed as mortar in building eligible freehold tenements.

He fumbled in his pocket, but his hands were so numb that he could scarcely capture the nimble fourpence. Why should the "nimble fourpence" have the monopoly of agility?

"I'm Blue Ribbon, Tommy, don't yer know," said Bill, with regretful sullenness. His ragged great-coat, indeed, was decorated with the azure badge of avowed and total abstinence.

"Blow yer blue ribbon! Hold on where ye are, and I'll bring the bloomin' hammer myself."

Thus growling, Tommy strode indifferent through the snow, his legs protected by bandages of straw ropes. Presently he reappeared in the warmer yellow of the light that poured through the windows of the old public-house. He was wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, which he then thrust into the deeps of his pockets, hugging a hammer to his body under his armpit.

"A little hot beer would do yer bloomin' temper a deal more good than ten yards o' blue ribbon at sixpence. Blue ruin's more in my line," observed Thomas, epigram-matically, much comforted by his refreshment. Aid with two well-directed taps he knocked the pins out of their sockets, and let down the backboard of the cart.

Bill, uncomforted by ale, sulkily jerked the horses forward; the cart was tilted up, and the snow tumbled out, partly into the shallow shore-water, partly on to the edge of the slope.

"Ullo!" cried Tommy suddenly. "E're's an old coat-sleeve a sticking out o' the snow."

"'Alves!" exclaimed Bill, with a noble eye on the main chance.

"'Alves! of course, 'alves. Ain't we on the same lay," replied the chivalrous Tommy. Then he cried, "Lord preserve us, mate; there's a cove in the