‘I should only look a juggins in ‘em, miss, thanking you all the same,’ was the reply; ‘but a bath I wouldn’t resist, and my shirt was only clean on week before last.’
Cyril and Robert led him to a rocky pool, where he bathed luxuriously. Then, in shirt and trousers he sat on the sand and spoke.
‘That cook, or queen, or whatever you call her—her with the white bokay on her ‘ed—she’s my sort. Wonder if she’d keep company!’
‘I should ask her.’
‘I was always a quick hitter,’ the man went on; ‘it’s a word and a blow with me. I will.’
In shirt and trousers, and crowned with a scented flowery wreath which Cyril hastily wove as they returned to the court of the queen, the burglar stood before the cook and spoke.
‘Look ‘ere, miss,’ he said. ‘You an’ me being’ all forlorn-like, both on us, in this ‘ere dream, or whatever you calls it, I’d like to tell you straight as I likes yer looks.’
The cook smiled and looked down bashfully.
‘I’m a single man—what you might call a batcheldore. I’m mild in my ‘abits, which these kids’ll tell you the same, and I’d like to ‘ave the pleasure of walkin’ out with you next Sunday.’
‘Lor!’ said the queen cook, ‘’ow sudden you are, mister.’