thinking of consequences, without knowing,
I may almost say, what words I was uttering
till the instant when they rose to my
lips.

"When your old neck-tie was torn, did you
know that one end of it went to the rag-shop
and the other fell into my hands?" I said
these bold words to him suddenly, and, as it
seemed, without my own will taking any part
in them.

He started, stared, changed colour. He
was too much amazed by my sudden speaking
to find an answer for me. When he did
open his lips it was to say rather to himself
than me:

"You're not the girl."

"No," I said, with a strange choaking at
my heart. "I'm her friend."

By this time he had recovered his surprise,
and he seemed to be aware that he had let
out more than he ought.

"You may be anybody's friend you like,"
he said brutally, "so long as you don't come
jabbering nonsense here. I don't know
you, I don't understand your jokes." He
turned quickly away from me when he
had said the last words. He had never
once looked fairly at me since I first spoke
to him.

Was it his hand that had struck the
blow?

I had only sixpence in my pocket, but I
took it out and followed him. If it had been
a five-pound note, I should have done the
same in the state I was in then.

"Would a pot of beer help you to understand
me?" I said, and offered him the sixpence.

"A pot ain't no great things," he answered,
taking the sixpence doubtfully.

"It may lead to something better," I
said.

His eyes began to twinkle, and he came
close to me. Oh, how my legs trembled!—
how my head swam!

"This is all in a friendly way, is it?" he
asked in a whisper.

I nodded my head. At that moment, I
could not have spoken for worlds.

"Friendly, of course," he went on to himself,
"or there would have been a policeman
in it. She told you, I suppose, that I wasn't
the man?"

I nodded my head again. It was all I
could do to keep myself standing upright.

"I suppose it's a case of threatening to
have him up, and making him settle it
quietly for a pound or two? How much for
me if you lay hold of him?"

"Half." I began to be afraid that he
would suspect something if I was still silent.
The wretch's eyes twinkled again, and he
came yet closer.

"I drove him to the Red Lion, corner of
Dodd Street and Rudgely Street. The house
was shut up, but he was let in at the Jug-
and-Bottle-door, like a man who was known
to the landlord. That's as much as I can
tell you, and I'm certain I'm right. He was
the last fare I took up at night. The next
morning master gave me the sack. Said I
cribbed his corn and his fares. I wish I
had!"

I gathered from this that the crook-backed
man had been a cab-driver.

"Why don't you speak," he asked
suspiciously. "Has she been telling you a pack
of lies about me? What did she say when
she came home?"

"What ought she to have said?"

"She ought to have said my fare was
drunk, and she came in the way as he was
going to get into the cab. That's what she
ought to have said to begin with."

"But, after?"

"Well, after, my fare by way of larking
with her, puts out his leg for to trip her up,
and she stumbles and catches at me for to
save herself, and tears off one of the limp
ends of my rotten old tie. 'What do you
mean by that, you brute,' says she, turning
round as soon as she was steady on her legs,
again, to my fare. Says my fare to her, 'I
means to teach you to keep a civil tongue in
your head. And he ups with his fist, and——
What's come to you, now? What are you
looking at me like that, for? How do you
think a man of my size was to take her part,
against a man big enough to have eaten me up?
Look as much as you like, in my place you
would have done what I done—drew off when
he shook his fist at you, and swore he'd be
the death of you if you didn't start your
horse in no time."

I saw he was working himself into a rage;
but I could not, if my life had depended on it,
have stood near him, or looked at him any
longer. I just managed to stammer out that
I had been walking a long way, and that, not
being used to much exercise, I felt faint and
giddy with fatigue. He only changed from
angry to sulky, when I made that excuse. I
got a little further away from him, and then
added, that if he would be at the Mews
entrance the next evening, I should have
something more to say and something more
to give him. He grumbled a few suspicious
words in answer, about doubting whether he
should trust me to come back. Fortunately,
at that moment, a policeman passed on the
opposite side of the way, he slunk down the
Mews immediately, and I was free to make
my escape.

How I got home I can't say, except that I
think I ran the greater part of the way.
Sally opened the door, and asked if anything
was the matter the moment she saw my face.
I answered, "Nothing! nothing!" She
stopped me as I was going into my room,
and said,

"Smooth your hair a bit, and put your
collar straight. There's a gentleman in there
waiting for you."

My heart gave one great bound—I knew