"Five pounds!--crikey, if you ain't a pretty cove! Are you a-gammoning me?" Bertie looked at the lad. A thought struck him. He put out his hand and took him by the shoulder. "You've robbed me," he said. "You leave me alone! who are you touching of? If you don't leave me alone, I'll make you smart." "You try it on," said Bertie. The other tried it on, and with such remarkable celerity, that before he had realized what had happened, Bertie Bailey lay down flat. The stranger showed such science that, in his present half comatose condition, Bailey went down like a log. "You wouldn't have done that if I'd been all right; and I do believe you've robbed me." "Believe away! I ain't, so there! I ain't so much as seen the colour of your money, and I don't know nothing at all about it. The first I see of you was about five o'clock. You was a-lying just where you are now, and I've come and had a look at you a dozen times since. Why, it must be ten o'clock, for the circus is out, and you ain't woke up only just this minute. How came you to be lying there?" "I don't know. I've been robbed, and that's quite enough for me,--my head is aching fit to split." "Haven't you got any money left?" "No, I haven't." "Where's your home?" "What's that to you?" "Well, it ain't much to me, but I should think it's a good deal to you. If I was you I'd go home." "Well, you're not me, so I won't." "All right, matey, it ain't no odds to me. If you likes lying there till the perlice come and walks you off, it's all the same to me so far as I'm concerned." "I've got no money; I've been robbed." "I tell you what I'll do, I ain't a rich chap, not by no manner of means, and I never had five pounds to lose, but I've had a stroke of luck in my small way, and if you really haven't got no home, nor yet no coin, I don't mind standing in for a bed so far as four pence goes." "I don't know what you mean; leave me alone. I've got no money; I've been robbed." "So you have, chummy, and that's a fact; so you pick yourself up and toddle along with me; there ain't no fear of your being robbed again if you've nothing to lose." Bertie half resisted the stranger's endeavour to assist him in finding his feet, but the other managed so dexterously that Bertie found himself accompanying his new friend with a fair amount of willingness. The fair was still at its height; the swings were fuller; the roundabout was driving a roaring trade; the sportsmen in the shooting gallery were popping away; but all these glories had lost their charm for Bertie. It seemed to him that it was all a hideous nightmare, from which he vainly struggled to shake himself free. Had it not been for occasional assistance, he would more than once have lost his footing. Something ailed him, but what, he was at a loss to understand. All the hopes, and vigour, and high spirits of the morning had disappeared, and with them all his dreams had vanished too. He was the most miserable young gentleman in Kingston Fair.