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284 awkward pause, "I won't say that the idea hadn't occurred to me also."

"Well," urged Mr. Hink, as the other again relapsed into a tranquil silence. "What's the matter with it?"

"When I found that ring," said the tramp impressively, "I didn't think much, either one way or the other; but when I read that in the paper I felt for the moment that there wasn't no holding myself in. Then I saw the house and so on, and reviewed my past life and future prospects. 'It's no go, Bill,' I says and I was clean doused. Now meetin' you has put fresh 'art into me, but, sooner than act the jay and lose it all, I'd chuck it straightway into the Serpentine and walk away, hungry and ill-clad, blind my blinkers if I wouldn't!"

"What's the talk about losing it?" demanded the gentleman indignantly. "D'ye think I'd run off with it?"

"No, governor, I don't. Because, for that matter, I should walk with you as far as the door. But how do I know who you are? How do I know that you aren't 'and in glove with the toff at that address? You've got all the style of it, and you seem to know who he is. Where should I be if you went in and didn't come out again; or, being a friend of his, got him to let you out by the back door?"

"I don't know him, reely I don't," protested Mr. Hink earnestly. "I'd act the fair thing."

"No offence, governor," replied the tramp; "but there's no denying that oncet you go inside with the ring you've got the whip 'and of me, so to speak, and my little all goes with you. Share and share alike is my idea—but no. Without any ill-will, governor, it'd be too bitter."

The bitterness was already overflowing from Mr. Hink's cup. Ten pounds, and the Earl of Saxmundham, with, possibly, a graceful word to the Lady Irene or the