I'd walked a long way to get my teeth into a piece of beef-steak."

"I don't believe you."

"Well, of course, you don't have to," said William calmly. "That's a funny thing about grown-ups. They'll believe any old lie if it's in print, but the minute anybody tells 'em the truth straight outen his heart, they don't——"

"Boy," she interrupted sharply, "don't preach to me!"

"Preach! me preach!"

"Yes; you may not call it that, but it's preaching just the same. Now, where's Whimple?"

"Honest, lady, I don't know. He——"

And here Whimple entered by the back door. For collectors were beginning at this time to come in with requests for payments of the monthly bills incidental to the upkeep of an office, and it was the part of wisdom to ascertain before entering the office whether any such were "at anchor."

His aunt greeted him with a fair amount of cheerfulness, and at once informed him that she had come to ask that he look after the interests of her estate.

"I've been acting as my own rent collector for years," she said, "and I'm getting tired of it. I want you to look after that and after any legal business arising therefrom, but mind you I'll pay you only the legal rate, no more, relative or no relative."

They passed into Whimple's room, whence the lady emerged some time later. William opened the office door for her, and as she passed out she admonished him to make good use of his time, and "never, never enter law."

"I'm about as near to it as I'll ever get," answered William politely.

CHAPTER V

This is a chronicle of facts, culled from the life of William Adolphus Turnpike and other personages, as distinguished from mere history. Everybody in this age of research and cheap books, to say nothing of magazines and newspapers, knows that history is not true. It is established beyond doubt, for instance, that King Richard III. was a man of loving disposition, and that the story of his being an accessory to the death of the little princes has no foundation. We know also that the Scots deliberately planned the loss of the battle of Flodden in order to pave the way for their modern invasion of England and the capture of all the good jobs in the empire. They simply lured the English on, because they knew that no Englishman could live north of the Tweed and ever get enough to eat, while every Scotsman is impervious to stomachic or climatic conditions so long as there is a position to be filled or a bawbee to be paid out.

Here then, sticking to facts, is to be recorded that William Adolphus Turnpike reached the office one Monday morning, some time after the events last chronicled, wearing a black eye, an abrased nose, and a scratched chin. Naturally, Lucien Torrance, office boy to Simmons, the architect, and therefore on terms of equality with William, demanded an immediate and detailed explanation, which William proceeded to give.

"Did yer see the lacrosse match between the Easts and the Stars on Saturday?

"What! yer didn't? Gee! you missed it. Say, there was somethin' doing nearly every minute till the police broke up the game and took the players to the Number 4 Station.

"What's that—did I take the kiddies? Not for a minute I didn't. Would yer wanter take your little brothers or sisters——

"You ain't got none. Well, nobody's blamin' you, are they? I'm just supposin' you had. Would you wanter take 'em any place you'd thought there was goin' to be a scrap? Not much you wouldn't. I seen them teams play once before when I was a kid.

"What! Well, I like that. Fourteen last birthday, and I'm taking nothin' from any feller my age around these parts and don't you forget it, or I might forget I promised me mother I'd try not to fight for one day.

"Well, anyway I piked off alone to the flats to see the game, and, say, there was about half a millyun people there.

"What's that! There ain't half a millyun in the whole city of Toronto? You'd be a peach of a booster for this town, wouldn't you? Suppose there ain't, it sounds good anyway. Besides, you know very well I'm just trying to give you some idea about the size of the mob. And say, maybe there wasn't some tough mugs there neither. Uh!

"Well, the referee he gives the teams a talking to about keeping the nation-al game clean and free from disgrace. 'The first man,' he says, 'that forgets he's playing lacrosse and begins laying the hickory on anybody,' he says, ''ll get a good long penalty.'

"Then Alderman McWhirter takes a whirl at 'em; him with the spongy whiskers on each side of his face, and a jaw like the vestibul of a street car.

"Vestibool, is it? Where did ye learn French? You muster lived in Montreal.

"You never? Well, hold your hair on; hold your hair on. Kinder soured on your food, ain't yer? What d'ye eat for breakfast anyway? Malted soapsuds, chipped mule fritters, er any o' them fancy foods?

"Porridge! my, but you're away behind the times. Wake up, man, wake up, the fast express is tearin' down the track and——

"All right. I'll proceed. So McWhirter gives the bunch a spiel a mile long and would be going yet, but somebody calls out to him to dry up, an' he gets red in the face and dries up, and the game starts.

"For about one minute they played like Sunday school was a joy to them, and then the Easts bangs the ball into the net and the goal umpire he ups with his hand, meanin' a goal and——

"What's that? You know that means a goal, eh! Feeling pretty pert this morning, eh! Mebbe you'd like to go on an' tell the story to yourself.

"Oh! all right, all right. Well, anyway, up goes the goal umpire's hand for a goal, and down goes the umpire for the count, for Tip Doolen of the Stars cracks him a wallop on his brain factory you could hear a mile away. And all the Easts piles on to Tip and it took the police fifteen minutes to get 'em untied. And the police sergeant he says, it's Tip to the station, but the goal umpire wakes up and says he wouldn't lodge no complaint, for Tip and him's friendly, only would they please get a new goal umpire, he says, and they did.

"Then the police sergeant wouldn't let 'em go on playing till he'd had a little say, and you'd oughter heard it. He says, 'It looks to me like most er you fellers is spoilin' for a clubbin', and I'd hate,' he says, 'to disappoint you if that's the case. But I'm willing to stay on duty a few hours beyond me time,' he says, 'in order to please you.'

"And the fellers swear they're ready to go on with the game and play like kinder-gart'ners. So the sergeant says, 'Let her go,' he says.

"So it went all right for quite a while and there wasn't much doin' except the noise, for both sides had big gangs there and you cert'nly could hear 'em.

"At the end of the second quarter it was a tie—two goals each, and not more'n half the players on the mourners' bench.

"What! You don't know what the mourners' bench is? Say, if you'd only study the English language 'stead of loading your think tank with them furrin' words you wouldn't need nobody to tell you that the mourners' bench is just another name for the penalty bench.

"But when the third quarter gets nicely started! Well, say, the referee he puts one of the Easts off the field for trippin', and another one of the Easts he swings his stick on the referee's slats for all he's worth, an' the referee just has time to kick him in the shins before a third feller gives the referee a biff under the ear and lays him out. About half the people made a mad rush for the Easts and the other half rushes for the Stars, and there's only six policemen there. But the sergeant—say, my Pa knows him well—he's the wise guy. He lets 'em all get going and you couldn't see anything but people shovin' and crowdin' and hittin'. And then he chases for the caretaker of the park where the flats are an' gets two lines of hose fixed on a hydrant and two cops a holdin' the hose. And pretty soon two