"How's it getting on?" he asked. "Pah!" muttered Bobby--"Cad!" and went out, rather white. That was not the end of the matter, however. A few days later Joe Burt and Bobby had paused for a word at the _Star_ corner when Mr. Spink and Alf Caspar came down Church Street together. "Birds of a feather," said Alf loudly, nudging his companion, just as they passed the standing couple. "That's not very courteous, Caspar," called Bobby quietly after him. Mr. Spink walked on with a smirk; but Alf came back with hardly dissimulated truculence. "Sorry you've been spreading this about me, Mr. Chislehurst," he said, his sour eyes blinking. "What?" asked the Cherub, astonished. "Dirt," Alf retorted. "And I know where you got it from too." "I haven't," cried Bobby with boyish indignation. "What d'you mean?" "I know you have though," retorted Alf. "So it's no good denying it." He was about to move on with a sneer when Joe Burt struck in. "That's a foonny way to talk," he said. "_Foonny_ it may be," mocked Alf. "One thing I'll lay: it's not so _foonny_ as your lingo." The engineer shouldered a pace nearer. "Throw a sneer, do you?" "Ah," said Alf, secure in the presence of the clergyman. "I know all about _you_." "Coom to that," retorted the Northerner, "I know a little about you. One o Stan's pups, aren't you?" Bobby moved on and Alf at once followed suit. "You keep down in the East-end, my lad!" he called over his shoulder. "We don't want none of it in Old Town. Nor we won't have it, neether." Joe stood four-square at the cross-roads, bristling like a dog. "Called yourself a Socialist when yo were down, didn't you?" he shouted. "And then turned Church and State when yo began to make. I know your sort!" He dropped down Borough Lane, hackles still up, on the way to meet Ernie by appointment in the Moot. At the corner he waited, one eye on Ern's cottage, which he did not approach. Then Ruth's face peeped round her door, amused and malicious, to catch his dark head bobbing back into covert as he saw her. The two played _I spy_ thus most evenings to the amusement of one of them at least. "He's there," she told Ernie in the kitchen--"Waitin at the corner.--Keeps a safe distance, don't he?--What's he feared on?" "You," answered Ernie, and rose. Ruth snorted. The reluctance to meet her of this man with the growing reputation as a fighter amused and provoked her. Sometimes she chaffed with Ernie about it; but a ripple of resentment ran always across her laughter. Ern now excused his friend. "He's all for his politics," he said. "No time for women." "Hap, he'll learn yet," answered Ruth with a fierce little nod of her head. CHAPTER IX THE SHADOW OF ROYAL That evening Alf called at Bobby's lodgings and apologised frankly. "I know I said what I shouldn't, sir," he admitted. "But it fairly tortured me to see you along of a chap like that Burt." "He's all right," said Bobby coldly. Alf smiled that sickly smile of his.