drink," and prepared to dive into the rain.

"'Orl right, boss," muttered Joe; and then, half to himself, he added
"'Ard luck, to grudge a man a pint, with 'is own missis inside there
gittin' as full as a tick."

"What's that yer say?" cried Jonah, turning pale.

"Nuthin'," muttered Joe, conscious that he had made a mistake.

But a sudden light flashed on Jonah. Ada had lied to him from the
beginning. She had told him that she got the drink at Paddy Boland's
in the Haymarket, a notorious drinking-den for women, where spirits
were served to customers, disguised as light refreshments. The fear of
a public scandal in a room full of women had alone prevented him from
going there to find her. It was Mrs Herring's craft to throw Jonah on
the wrong scent, and sip comfortably in the back parlour of the Angel,
safe from detection, a stone's throw from the Silver Shoe. Jonah
turned and walked in at the side door, leaving Joe with the uneasy
feeling of the man who killed the goose to get the golden eggs.

Ada had just rung the gong, insisting on another drink with the fatuous
obstinacy of drunkards. She lolled in her chair, her hat tilted over
one ear, watching the door for the return of Cassidy with the tray and
glasses, and wondering dimly why Mrs Herring's voice sounded far away,
as if she were speaking through a telephone. Mrs Herring, the tip of
her nose growing a brighter red with drink and vexation, was scolding
and coaxing by turns in a rapid whisper. Suddenly she stopped, her
eyes fixed in a petrified stare at an apparition in the doorway. It
was the devil himself, Ada's husband, the hunchback. As he stood in
the doorway, his eyes travelled from her to his wife. His face turned
white, a nasty greyish white, his eyes snapped like an angry cat's, and
then his face hardened in a sneer. But Ada, who was fast losing
consciousness of her identity, stared at her husband without fear or
surprise. The deadly silence was broken by the arrival of Cassidy, who
nearly ran into Jonah with the tray.

"Beg pardon," said he, briskly, and looking down found himself staring
into the face of a grinning corpse.

"Don't mind me, Cassidy," said the corpse, speaking. "She can stand
another glass, I think."

Cassidy put the tray down with a jerk that upset the glasses.

"I'm very sorry this should have happened, Mr Jones," he stammered.
"I'm very ..."

"Of course you are," cried Jonah. "Ye're sorry fer anythin' that
int