was
uncertain, cautious, "that's a matter long since dead and done with.
Didn't imagine you ever knew about it; because that was before your
time; you weren't even in London then." The keen eyes of the listener
rested steadily on the other; seemed to read deeper. "But as for my
testimony helping to send him over the water--"

"Or under!" _sotto voce_.

Joe swallowed. "It was true, every word of it."

"Good!" John Steele spoke almost listlessly. "Always stick by any one
who sticks to you,--whether a friend, or a pal, or a patron."

"A patron!" From the other's lips fell an oath; he seemed about to say
something but checked himself; the seconds went by.

"But even if there had been something not quite--strictly in
accord--which there wasn't"--quickly--"a man couldn't gainsay what had
been said," Dandy Joe began.

"He could," indifferently.

"But that would be--"

"Confessing to perjury? Yes."

"Hold on, Mr. Steele!" The man's eyes began to shine with alarm. "I'm
not on the---"

"I know. And it wouldn't do any good, if you were."

"You mean--" in spite of himself, the fellow's tones wavered--"because
he's under the water?"

"No; I had in mind that even if he hadn't been drowned, your---"

"Wot! Hadn't---"

"A purely hypothetical case! If the sea gave up its dead"--Joe stirred
uneasily--"any retraction on your part wouldn't serve him. In the first
place, you wouldn't confess; then if you did--which you wouldn't--to
employ the sort of Irish bull you yourself used--you would be
discredited. And thus, in any contingency," leaning back with folded
arms, his head against the wall, "you have become _nil_!"

"Blest if I follow you, sir!"

"That, also," said John Steele, "doesn't matter. The principal subject
of any consequence, relating to you, is the steak, which is now coming."
As he spoke, he rose, leaving Dandy Joe alone at the table.

For a time he did not speak; sitting before a cheerless fire, that
feebly attempted to assert itself, he looked once or twice toward the
door, as if mindful to go out and leave the place.

But for an inexplicable reason he did not do so; there was nothing to be
gained here; yet he lingered. Perhaps one of those subtle, illusory
influences we do not yet understand, and which sometimes shape the
blundering finite will, mysteriously, without conscious volition, was at
work. One about to stumble blindly forward, occasionally stops; why, he
knows not.

John Steele continued