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Ginger stopped them to hiss, “We must disguise ourselves! Directly the alarm is given, any bobby will know us. I’m in me uniform, and anyone can see that you two are gentry. ”

“Why, Max and I have on awful’ simple suits! Nobody would ever notice ’em,” insisted Terry.

For once, Ginger was pleasantly able to be superior. “Simple, me eye! You may know all about courts and the likes of that, but I know the bobbies. ” The other two looked at him humbly, regretting their ignorance, and Ginger crowed: “I know a place where we can get some simply ‘orrid old clothes. Oh, beautiful! And the man ‘e knows me uncle ‘Ennery, and I think I can get ’im to exchange our clothes for old ones without charging us a bob. Come on!”

Ginger led them into the mediterranean mysteries of Soho. Here, in streets that ran like wounded snakes, was a world of Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, with a sprinkling of Chinese and Syrians, dwelling in gloomy low-windowed flats over restaurants or over sinister-looking chemist shops with signs in strange peppery languages.

Josephus went hysterical over rubbish piles and pushcarts. Ginger stopped at an old-clothes bazaar on Greek Street, but at the door he looked terrified.

“Crickey! The lad will remember me uniform! ‘E mustn’t see me. You two must get some clothes for me, too; I’ll meet you down at the next alley, and change in the court be’ind. ”

Ginger vanished, running. Terry and Maximilian glanced at each other nervously; nervously they called the valiant Josephus and stroked him. They could not confess that they were such weaklings, but neither had ever been allowed to go into a shop by himself, unwatched.

“Oh, hang it, I’m not afraid!” snarled Terry. Max looked grimly courageous.

The proprietor, a gentleman from the sunny lands of Syria, was eying them from the window. He rubbed his hands when they came in, and simpered.

“I want two old suits, quite old, for this boy and me,” said Max. “We’re—uh—going camping. And another suit for a boy about two inches taller than me. ”

“Erggg,” said Josephus, in a tone of positive dislike.

While the proprietor fetched them, Maximilian muttered, “Do you suppose he has a decent dressing room here? Really, the place seems dirty!”

“No!” urged Terry. “We mustn’t change here and leave our things— Scotland Yard might trace us by our clothes if we left ’em. ”

“Oh!” Maximilian seemed distinctly flattered. “I’ve read about Scotland Yard—detective stories I borrow from an English gardener at the palace at home. Do you suppose we’ll have a real inspector hunting for us? clues? How ripping! Do you reallythink so?”

“Oh, rather. At least I should think they’d search for a king, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, yes; I suppose they would. You see, I’ve been a king so short a time that I don’t quite know. But think of a Scotland Yard inspector hunting for you—microscope and bloodstains and everything. I say, I do like this! It’s so much more practical than Latin. ”

The old-clothes man was coming with three suits which were as beautifully ‘orrid as Ginger had promised. All three of them were gray along the seams, they were greasy, and the buttons hung wearily on worn threads. The three were worth, as masquerade costumes, six shillings altogether, but anyone with fancies about sanitation would have demanded five pounds to touch them.

“Just the thing for an outing, young gentlemen!” exulted the dealer. “Three quid for the lot—and your own clothes, of course. Swelp me, I’m giving ’em away. ”

The greenhorn Terry was roused to irritation. Three quid—he had learned from the scholarly Ginger that a quid was a pound. He snorted, “Don’t be silly! I’ll give you a pound and a half—what’d you call it, thirty shillings?—and we’ll keep our own clothes. ”

As he spoke, he had brought out his roll of notes, the fifty pounds that were to see them to Bristol and the gay free life of piracy. The dealer’s eyes popped, and he said crooningly:

“You’re an American, aren’t you, matey? And a fine little fellow, you and your little friend. ” Then, savagely, grasping Terry’s shoulders, his yellow teeth showing evilly, “And where did you steal your fine clothes? I’ll take fourquid, and keep quiet—else I’ll call in the police and we’ll find out what a couple of American stowaways, blinkin’ young tramps that’ve stole their clothes, are doing in my shop at seven in the morning!”