I had dotted in the outlines of the old footpath with the meadows beyond, the cotton-wool clouds sailing overhead--only in England do I find these clouds--and was calling to the restless Irishman to sit still or I would send him ashore ... wet, when he answered with one of his bubbling outbreaks: "I don't wonder yer hot, sor, but I git that fidgety. I been so long doin' nothin'; two months now, sor, since I been on a box." I worked on for a minute without answering. Hanging wall-paper by standing on a box was probably the way they did it in the country, the ceilings being low. "No work?" I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn't care what he talked or laughed about. "Plinty, sor--an' summer's the time to do it. So many strangers comin' an' goin', but they won't let me at it. I'm laid off for a month yet; that's why your job come in handy, sor." "Row with your Union?" I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on watching a sky tint above the foreground trees. "No--wid the perlice. A little bit of a scrimmage wan night in Trafalgar Square. It was me own fault, sor, for I oughter a-knowed better. It was about three o'clock in the mornin', sor, and I was outside one o' them clubs just below Piccadilly, when one o' them young chaps come out wid three or four others, all b'ilin' drunk--one was Lord Bentig--jumps into a four-wheeler standin' by the steps an' hollers out to the rest of us: 'A guinea to the man that gits to Trafalgar Square fust; three minutes' start,' and off he wint and we after him, leavin' wan of the others behind wid his watch in his hand." I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its lively side. "Afoot?" "All four of 'em, sor--lickety-split and hell's loose. I come near runnin' over a bobbie as I turned into Pall Mall, but I dodged him and kep' on and landed second, with the mare doubled up in a heap and the rig a-top of her and one shaft broke. Lord Bentig and the other chaps that was wid him was standin' waitin', and when we all fell in a heap he nigh bu'st himself a-laughin'. He went bail for us, of course, and give the three of us ten bob apiece, but I got laid off for three months, and come up here, where me old mother lives and I kin pick up a job." "Hanging paper?" I suggested with a smile.