"In April something burst," said Dolly, "and that meant more men with wigwams and braziers."

"And last month," concluded Dilly, "they took away the wood pavement and relaid the whole Square with some new patent asphalte, which smelt simply, oh----"

"Rotten!" supplied Gerald. (Have I mentioned that he had just arrived home for his summer holiday?)

"Well," said Champion, "the Bill would regulate that sort of thing. It would protect the streets from being torn up at will by any Company who happened to have business underneath them. As things are, practically any one may come along and hew holes anywhere he pleases."

"The police ought to stop it," said Kitty, who has a profound belief in the Force. (I am convinced that if Beelzebub himself were to enter the house at any time during my absence, Kitty would lure him into the dining-room with the sherry, and then telephone for a constable.)

"The police have no right," said Champion. "If a gas company choose to give notice that they intend on a certain day to come and burrow in a road, all the police can do is to divert the traffic, and make the gas company as comfortable as possible."

I was not following this conversation with any particular interest.

Being expected to speak in favour of the Bill that night, I was undergoing the preliminary anguish which invariably attends my higher oratorical efforts. But I remember now that about this time Dilly suddenly turned to Dicky and whispered something in his ear. Then they both looked across the dinner-table at Robin, who nodded, as who should say, "I know fine what you whispered then." After that they all three laughed and looked down the table at Champion, who was still expatiating on the merits of his Bill.

I suppose anybody else would have divined what was in the wind, but I did not.

A week later we were treated to an all-night sitting. The Irishmen had been quiescent of late, but on this occasion they made amends for their temporary relaxation of patriotism by resolutely obstructing an Appropriation Bill, which had to pass through Committee that night (if John Bull was to have any ready cash at all during the next few months), and kept us replying to amendments and trotting through division-lobbies until six o'clock next morning.

Robin stayed on in attendance at the House most of the night, but about three o'clock I sent him home, with instructions to stay in bed till tea-time if he pleased. He had had a hard time lately.

I was walking homeward in the early sunshine, marvelling, as people who accidentally find themselves up early pharisaically do, at the fatuity of those who waste the best hours of the whole day in bed, and revelling in the near prospect of a bath and my breakfast, when on turning a corner I walked into a hand-cart which was standing across the pavement.

It contained workmen's tools--picks, shovels, and the like. On the near side of the roadway a man was erecting one of those curious wigwam arrangements which screen the operations of electricians and other subterranean burrowers from the public gaze. A dirty-faced small boy in corduroys was tending a brazier of live coals, upon which some breakfast cans were steaming. Between the wigwam and the pavement a gigantic navvy was hewing wooden paving-blocks out of the roadway.

The spectacle did not attract my interest specially, as this particular piece of street had been eviscerated so often that I had grown callous to its sufferings. But I paused for a moment to survey the big navvy's muscles, and to wonder how early in the morning it would be necessary to rise in order to catch a small boy with a clean face. The navvy was a fine specimen of humanity, with a complexion tanned a dusky coffee colour.

I was reflecting on the joys of the simple life and the futility of politics and other indoor pastimes in general, when the big man rose from his stooping posture and caught my eye. He appeared a little disconcerted by my scrutiny, and turned his back and renewed his exertions with increased vigour, favouring me hereafter with what architects call a "south elevation" of himself.

I went home to breakfast, wondering where I had seen the big navvy's back before. I mentioned casually to Kitty and the Twins that Goring Street was up again. They wondered how the management of the Goring Hotel liked it, with that mess under their very windows, and agreed with me that it was high time Champion's Bill, due for its Third Reading to-morrow, became law.

I stayed in bed till lunch-time, and then, rather late in the afternoon, set out for the House, which I knew I should find in an extremely limp condition after its previous night's dissipation. On the way I called in at the Goring Hotel in Goring Street, where Champion lived when in town.

I found him in his room on the first floor, gazing out of the window into the street.

I looked out too, to see what was interesting him. Directly below us lay the encampment of the workmen whom I had seen in the morning. They had hewed up a few yards of the wood pavement, and the smaller of the two men was now immersed up to his waist in a hole, working rather laboriously in the restricted space at his command with a pick-axe. The boy was piling wooden blocks into a neat heap, and the big man, whose form was only partially visible, was doing something inside the wigwam.

The roadway was more than half blocked, and cabs and omnibuses, in charge of overheated and eloquent drivers, were being filtered through the narrow space left at their disposal by a phlegmatic policeman.

"Look here," said Champion.

I looked.

"What on _earth_ are those fellows doing?" he continued.

"Re-laying the road, perhaps."

"One doesn't re-lay a road by making a deep hole in it."

"Well--gas!"

"Gas and electric light mains in this street are all led along a special conduit reached by manholes every eighty yards," said Champion. "There's no need to dig."

"Well--drains!" said I vaguely. But I was a mere child in the hands of this expert.

"The drains, as you call them," he said testily, "consist of a great sewer away in the depths, accessible from various appointed places.

Besides, nobody in his senses tries to lift earth out of a hole with a pick-axe."

"Perhaps the solution of the mystery lies inside the wigwam," I said.

"No. That is just what complicates matters. When a shaft leading down to the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is put over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter--nothing but the bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage accessory, planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality. Ah, look at that!"

"That" was a small piece of paving-wood, dexterously hurled by the dirty-faced boy, who seemed to be finding time hang rather heavily on his hands. It took a passing citizen in the small of the back, but when he swung round to detect the source of the missile the boy was on his knees again industriously blowing up the brazier.

With an indignant snort the citizen passed on his way, doubtless adding the outrage, in his mind, to the long list of unsolved London crimes.

But retribution awaited the youthful miscreant. The phlegmatic policeman who was regulating the traffic on the single-line system happened to notice the deed. He walked majestically across from the far side of the street towards our excavating friends.

"Come on!" said Champion to me. "There's going to be some fun."

We stepped out through one of the windows, which possessed a broad balcony, and took our stand behind some laurels in tubs which lined the balustrade. The street was comparatively quiet at the time, and we were able to hear most of the dialogue that ensued.

"'Ere, mate," began the traffic-expert to the smaller of the two navvies, "just ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead, will you?"

The smaller man desisted from his labours in the hole.

"Wotsye, ole sport?" he inquired cheerily.

The policeman was a little ruffled by this familiarity.

"I'll trouble _you_," he repeated with some hauteur, "to ketch that boy of yours a clip on the side of the 'ead. If not, I shall 'ave to do my duty, according----"

Here the roar of a passing dray drowned his utterance.

The smaller man clambered nimbly out of the hole and proceeded to grab his young friend by the scruff of the neck.

"Billy," he remarked dispassionately, "this gentleman says as 'ow I'm to give you a clip on the side of the 'ead."

"Woffor," inquired Billy, simulating extreme terror.

The man passed the question on to the policeman, who explained the nature of the offence. His statement was voluntarily corroborated by several members of an audience which seemed to have materialised from nowhere, and now formed a ring round the encampment.

"Righto!" said the man with cheery acquiescence. "Billy, my lad, you've got to 'ave it."

"Tha's right, ole son! You give 'im socks," remarked a hoarse and rather indistinct voice of the gin-and-fog variety, from among the spectators.

Simultaneously its owner lurched his way to the front rank, the others making room for him with that respectful sympathy, not unmixed with envy, which is always accorded to a true-born Briton in his condition.

He was obviously a member of some profession connected with coal-dust, and it was plain that he had been celebrating the conclusion of his day's labours.

The smaller navvy, thus exhorted, administered the desired clip. It was not a particularly severe one, but it drew from its recipient the somewhat unexpected expostulation--