"Zepp-a-lins!" he said mysteriously.

"Eh?"

"Zepp-a-lins!"

"Oh!"--Nicky-Nan's brow cleared--"You mean them German balloon things
the papers make so much fuss about."

"Die-rigitable," added Rat-it-all. "That's the point."

"Well? . . . Have 'ee seen any?" Nicky-Nan lifted his gaze skyward.

"I won't go so far as to say that I've seen anything answerin' to
that description knockin' about--not up to the present. But these
are times when a man must keep his eyes liftin' if he doesn' want Old
England to be taken with what the newspapers call a Bolt from the
Blue."

"I've come across the expression," said Nicky-Nan.

"Well, what I say is, Down here, in this corner of the world--though,
mind you, I'm not sayin' anything against it--you don't _reelise_
things: you reely don't. Now I come from Bodmin, as I think I must
have told you."

"You did."

"Where you see the soldiers goin' about with the stripes down their
trowsers: but they've done away with that except for the Yeomanry