Albert, who, true to his promise, had somehow got home before the rest of the party, was standing outside the door of the saddle-room.  The other lads were gathered round him in respectful silence.  Albert was busy, but he was not engaged as usual in telling his admirers tall stories of the Meeting and his own prowess in getting the blind side of mugs and dandy duds.  He had a bit of chalk in his hand and was drawing on the door.  There was no doubt the lad could draw.  Monkey Brand indeed asserted that there were few things Albert Eddud could not do if he tried—­“and the wusser the thing the better he does it.”  Now he was drawing the head of a man with a huge and bulbous nose.  Boy caught a glimpse of it as she entered the yard, and recognised it in a flash.  It was the face of the hero of a comic paper the lads took in:  a paper of which she disapproved, although with her instinctive sense for government, she did not think it wise to suppress it. Ally Sloper its name; its subject, ladies in bathing costume.

Albert, rapt in his labour, was working with the fury of the artist.  He finished with a flourish.  The lads crowded round to look.  Foremost amongst them were Jerry, a youth with corrugated brow and profoundly sagacious air; and Stanley, dark and sleek and heavy of face, in whom sloth and sleep and insolence seemed to war.  Jerry clearly should have been a philosopher, and Stanley an emperor.

Monkey Brand was in the habit of referring, not without bitterness, to the pair and Albert as “them three.”  He believed them capable of anything, and was not far out in his belief.  Jerry, the thinker, planned the crimes; Albert, the man of action, committed them; and Stanley, the stupid, bore the blame and paid the price.  When they were not at each other’s throats, the three hung very close together.

Albert Edward now thrust his friends aside.

“Half a mo’!” he cried, and scrawled in dashing hand beneath the portrait the legend: 

          Ally Slo’s
          Got a nose
          Like our Jose’. 
                S.

Albert stood back with folded arms to admire his masterpiece.  The beauty of it over-awed his naturally irreverent spirit.

“’Ush!” he said.

But a rude voice burst in on his silent rapture.

“Albert!” it called peremptorily.

The artist turned round to see Boy leading the old mare into the yard.

“Yes, Miss.”

“Take Mr. Silver’s pony.”

“Yes, Miss.”

“Jerry, put Billy Bluff on the chain.  Stanley, put that chestnut’s muzzle on.”

She led the old mare to the gate that opened on the Paddock Close.

Silver followed her, and looking back saw Monkey Brand limp into the yard from the road, leading Goosey Gander.

Mat was on the other side of the old horse, walking thoughtfully, his whip over his shoulder, and muttering to himself, as was his way.