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Rh dirt into the arms of his outraged superior. "It is yours, sir; I, Bendigo Jones, have given you my masterpiece."

Then he departed.

The only man who really suffered was the base materialist. Two hours later he rolled up for his dinner, in a mood even more uncommunicative than usual.

"’Ullo, Nobby," remarked the cook affably, "you don't seem yer usual chatty self this morning. An' wot 'ave you got on your neck?"

"Less of it," returned the other morosely. "It's Hepping Forest. And that"—he plucked a fragment from his hair—"that is the bally twins playin' '’Unt the slipper.'"

Even the cook was stirred out of his usual air of superiority by this assertion, and contemplated the speaker with interest. "You don't say." He inspected the phenomenon more closely. "I thought as 'ow it was mud."

"It is." Nobby was even more morose. "It belonged to that 'orror Bendigo Jones, and 'e went and give it to the General." The speaker swallowed once or twice. "Then the General, 'e gives it back, in a manner of speaking. Only Bendy had gone by the time it come, and—I 'adn't. Lumme! wot a life."