landscape out of it.  I paid the taxi-man over ’alf of all the money I ‘ad, an’ we went to the ticket-awfice.  ‘Elbert,’ I ses, ‘where shell we book to,’ I ses, like that, though I ’adn’t ’ardly a bloody oat in me purse.  ’Take a platform ticket,’ ‘e ses, an’ so I did.  But ’e run on to the platform without no ticket, an’ begun dancin’ up an’ down among the people like a mad thing, but nobody seemed to mind ’im.  I set down on a seat to watch ’im.  I thought:  ‘Blimey,’ I thought, ‘if I ain’t under thet blinkin’ mountain now, an’ all these people,’ I ses, ’is the Little People they tell of, that lives inside ‘ills, an’ on’y comes out under the moon.’  I remembered thet moonlight debt o’ mine, an’ I thought—­’I’m done with the mud now, I’m comin’ alive now,’ I ses, ‘and this’ll be my charnce.’  Presently Elbert come back to me, an’ ‘e was draggin’ a soldier by the ’and.  ‘This is a magic man,’ ses Elbert, ‘come back from livin’ under the sky.  Can’t you feel the magic?’ ’e ses.

“Well, dearie, take it ’ow you will, thet’s ’ow I met my Sherrie.  A magic man ’e was, for ’e ‘ad my ticket taken, an’ never seemed surprised.  Ten days leave ’e ‘ad, an’ we spent it at an inn in a village on a moor, jest a mile out o’ sound of the sea.  The moor an’ the sea, touchin’ each other. ...  Oh Gawd!...  The sea was like my sky at night come nearer—­come near enough to know better, like.  In between the moor an’ the sea there was the beach—­it looked like a blessed boundary road between two countries, an’ it led away to where you couldn’t see nothing more except a little white town, sort of built ’igh upon a mist, more like a star....  Oh Gawd!...

“Anyway, Cuffbut, thet was me charnce, an’ thet’s ’ow I come to know ’ow my debt was goin’ to be paid.  Sherrie understood all thet.  ’E was a magic man, ’e was.  At least, ’e was mostly magic, but some of ’im was nothin’ but a fool when all’s said an’ done—­like any other man.  I couldn’t ’ave done with an all-magic bloke.  Ow, ’e was a fool....  All the things ’e might ‘ave bin able to do, like polishin’ ’is equipment, or findin’ ’is clean socks, ‘e use to forever be askin’ me to do.  I loved doin’ it.  But all the things ‘e couldn’t do at all, like drawin’ me likeness, or cuttin’ out a blouse for me, ‘e was forever tryin’ to do.”

She spoke of Sherrie as a naturalist would speak of a new animal, gradually finding out the pretty and amusing ways of the creature.

“I called ’im Sherrie because thet’s what ’e called me.  A French word it was, ’e ses, meaning ‘dearie,’ as it were.  ’E was a reel gent, was Sherrie.  I as’t ’im once why ’e took up with a woman like me, instead of with a reel young lady.  ’E ses as ’ow ’e’d never met before anybody ’oo seed themselves from outside an’ yet was fairly honest.  I know what ’e meant, for I was always more two people than one, an’ I watch meself sometimes as if I was a play.  I wouldn’t be tellin’ you this story, else.  Well, dearie, Elbert was always in an’