"I can Con-vers like Lords and Lydies," said Dickie, in the accents of the gutter, "and your noble benefacteriness made me seek to express my feelinks with the best words at me Command."
"Fond of books?"
"I believe you," said Dickie, and there were no more awkward pauses.
When the pale young man came back with something wrapped in a bit of clean rag, he said a whispered word or two to the pawnbroker, who unrolled the rag and looked closely at the rattle.
"So it is," he said, "and it's a beauty too, let alone anything else."
"Isn't he?" said Dickie, touched by this praise of his treasured Tinkler.
"I've got something else here that's got the same crest as your rattle."
"Crest?" said Dickie; "isn't that what you wear on your helmet in the heat and press of the Tower Nament?"
The pawnbroker explained that crests no longer live exclusively on helmets, but on all sorts of odd things. And the queer little animal, drawn in fine scratches on the side of the rattle, was, it seemed, a crest.
"Here, Humphreys," he added, "give it a rub up and bring that seal here."