make a night of it at the expense of the host of "White-cliff." To avoid
unpleasantness at the door, Nickie boldly climbed up the trellis of a
vine, and entered the noisy crowded ballroom through an open window,
rolling head over heels among the guests.

His appearance provoked a shout of laughter. This was the proper way for
a tramp to enter such a house. It was accepted as a quaint effort of
humour. Weary Willie was applauded, and his appearance, when he rose to
his feet, occasioned fresh merriment.

The "make-up" of Mr. Crips was certainly very effective, but with the
exception of the false nose it was nothing but his ordinary habit. He
wore a pair of old grey trousers, lashed up with one brace, and belted
with a strip of red material; between the fringed legs of this garment
and his broken canvas shoes the tops of socks, one white, the other
plaid, were plainly visible. The fact that they were only tops, and not
whole socks, was not to be missed, as they had worked up, and an inch of
bare ankle protruded. Nickie's coat was an old black Beaufort, from which
two buttons' hung on grey threads, which was split half-way up the back,
and from below the tails of which fluttered strips of torn lining. He
wore no vest, and had on a woman's faded pink print blouse as a shirt. He
had a linen collar that had long since lost all claims to whiteness and
all pretence of dignity, and his hat was a small round boxer, with
scarcely any rim. On one of the buttons of his Beaufort hung a strip of
ordinary sugar bag, on which he had written with a stub of pencil the
word "Program."

Mr. Nicholas Crips looked the part to the life. He had not shaved for a
week, and his lank hair was reaching out in all directions from under his
ridiculous hat, and from various strands dangled fragments of his last