"First it's 'Earty, then it's Gupperduck. Now I ask you, Mrs. B., wot would you think if I was to say we must 'ave a woman lodger? Now I ask you!"

"That's quite different," cried Mrs. Bindle angrily. "Mr. Gupperduck is——"

"A sort o' prayer-'og in trousers, judgin' from 'is talk," interrupted Bindle. "Me an' 'im ain't goin' to fall out, though you did give 'im a extra dose o' gravy; at the same time we ain't goin' to fall in love with each other. If 'e pays 'is rent an' behaves quiet like, then I 'aven't nothink to say, for wot's an 'ome without a lodger; but it's got to be 'ands orf my missis, see!"

"Bindle, you're a dirty-minded beast," retorted Mrs. Bindle, snapping her jaws viciously.

"That may, or may not be," replied Bindle as he walked towards the door on his way to bed; "but if you an' 'im start givin' each other the glad-eye, then I'm 'urt in my private feelin's, an' when I'm 'urt in my private feelin's, I'm 'ot stuff," and he winked gravely at the text on the kitchen wall containing some home truths for the transgressor.

CHAPTER II

A DOWNING STREET SENSATION

"Me ride eight miles on an 'orse!" exclaimed Bindle, looking up at the foreman in surprise. "An' who's a-comin' to 'old me on?"

Bindle stood in the yard of Messrs. Empsom & Daley, cartage contractors, regarding a pair of burly cart-horses, ready-harnessed, with the traces thrown over their backs.

The foreman explained in the idiom adopted by foreman that "orders is orders."

"You can ride on top, run beside, or 'ang on be'ind; but you got to be at Merton at twelve o'clock," he said. "We jest 'ad a telephone message that a van's stranded this side o' Merton, 'orses broken down, an' you an' Tippitt 'ave got to take these 'ere and deliver the goods. Then take the van where you're[Pg 21] told, an' bring back them ruddy 'orses 'ere, an' don't you forget it."

[Pg 21]

Bindle scratched his head through the blue and white cricket cap he habitually wore. Horses had suddenly assumed for him a new significance. With elaborate intentness he examined the particular animal that had been assigned to him.

"Wot part d'you sit on, ole son?" he enquired of Tippitt, a pale, weedy youth, with a thin dark moustache 

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