First, early in the morning, a young girl came down the road on a
bicycle. Her dressguard was loose, and she stopped to ask for a
piece of string. When I had tied it for her she looked at me, at
my worn dusty clothes and burnt face; and then she took a Niphetos
rose from her belt and laid it shyly in my dirty disfigured palm.
I bared my head, and stood hat in hand looking after her as she
rode away up the hill. Then I took my treasure and put it in a
nest of cool dewy grass under the hedge. Ecce ancilla Domini.

My next visitor was a fellow-worker on his way to a job at the
cross-roads. He stood gazing meditatively at my heap of stones.

"Ow long 'ave yer bin at this job that y'ere in such a hurry?"

I stayed my hammer to answer--"Four months."

"Seen better days?"

"Never," I said emphatically, and punctuated the remark with a
stone split neatly in four.

The man surveyed me in silence for a moment; then he said slowly,
"Mean ter say yer like crackin' these blamed stones to fill 'oles
some other fool's made?"

I nodded.

"Well, that beats everything. Now, I 'AVE seen better days; worked
in a big brewery over near Maidstone--a town that, and something
doing; and now, 'ere I am, 'ammering me 'eart out on these blasted