This mystical utterance was of course unintelligible to Tim, who looked up as though about to demand an explanation; but on second thoughts he threw himself down for a rest. He was not so young as he had been, and the violent exercise of the last sixty minutes had told slightly on his iron frame. "That was a good un, rye," said he, referring to the combat; "but you're too much of the eel for me. It ain't at sixty years that a man should mash round after a slippery chap like you." "Are you sixty years of age?" exclaimed Dan; and as Tim nodded, he continued, "Well, you don't look it, my man." "Open air and exercise, plain fare and daily change," replied Tim, glibly running off his lists of arts for circumventing the enemy Time; "but I'm beginning to get on, brother. There's a hole as I'll fall into afore long. Yet there's work to be done and wrongs to be righted afore I am tripped up. When all's square, I'll tumble into Mother Earth's arms with the rest." Engaged in getting victuals from the caravan, Dan did not at once comment on this mournful speech. When he did speak, his remark was more practical than sympathetic. "No doubt you're hungry after that tussle, Tim." "Ay, and thirsty. What have you to drink?" "Bottled beer. Here! don't spoil your dinner by smoking." Tim rapped the ashes out of his pipe, and with an assenting grin restored it to his pocket. Then he fell to caressing Peter. "A fine leetle dawg, squire!" "Pedigree dog! Kennel Club," replied Dan, curtly. "Ho, ho!" laughed the tinker, hoarsely, "and you call yourself a crocus! My Sam! You're a gentleman, you are--a great gentleman." "Pish! Do I look like a great gentleman in these rags?" "Ay, that you do, and burn him who says nay," replied Tim, emphatically. Whereat Dan laughed in a somewhat embarrassed fashion, and by way of changing the subject, intimated that the meal was ready. A meal he called it--by Vesta, goddess of the spit, it was a lordly banquet to which they sat down. Cold beef and pickles, bottled beer and cheese, with a plentiful supply of fresh bread. Can you ask anything better than to eat such victuals in the open air on a warm summer day, with voices of bird and bee, and sigh of wind, and roar of ocean, around? To feed in an airless dining-room were less conducive to appetite. The pair ate as they had fought, with a will, and the fragments of the feast would scarcely have filled one basket, let alone a dozen. Tim did most of the talking, and Dan could not help noticing that his speech was much more refined than was his appearance. This incongruity he touched on during the progress of the meal. "Where did you learn to speak so Well, Tim?"