subject.

"Are you on the tramp, or what? Is it comfortable?"

"Very," said Peter, "and interesting."

"_Is_ it interesting? How long are you going on with it? When are you
going home?"

"Oh, this is as much home as anywhere else, you know. I don't see any
reason for leaving it yet. We all like it. I've no money, you see, and
life is cheap here, and warm and nice."

"Cheap and warm and nice...." Ashe repeated it, vaguely surprised. He
hadn't realised that Peter was one of the permanently destitute, and
tramping not from pleasure but from necessity.

"What do you _do_?" he asked curiously, seeing that Peter was not at all
embarrassed.

"Oh, nothing very much. A little needlework, which I sell as I go along.
And various sorts of peddling, sometimes. I'm going up to the hotel this
evening, to try and make the people there buy things from me. And we just
play about, you know, and enjoy the roads and the towns and the fairs and
the seashore. It's all fun."

Ashe laughed and made himself cough.

"You awfully queer person! You really like it, living like that?... But
even I don't like it, you know, living shut away from life in this