my
eyes, but by his, for he spotted me at the very top of Wardour Street,
and, coming across the road, he slapped me on the shoulder, just as
though I had been his only brother let loose on society for the
especial purpose of shaking him by the hand.

"Why," says he, "I guess it's the coachman."

"Coachman be d----d," says I; "hasn't Pentonville taught you no better
manners than that? You be careful," says I, "or they'll be cancelling
your ticket-of-leave----"

He wasn't to be affronted, for he continued to treat me as though he
loved me and life had been a misery since we lost each other.

"Say," cried he, "you got through with the basket all right. Well, see
here, now; do you want to get that five hundred, Britten, or do you
not? I'll play the White Man with you--do you want to get it?"

"Oh," cried I, "if it's a matter of five hundred being put in the
cloak-room because there isn't a label on it----"

"Then come along," he rejoined, and, taking me by the arm, he led me
along the street, turned sharp round to the right into a place that
looked like a disused coach-house; and before I could wink my eye, he
dragged me through a door into a room beyond, and then burst out
laughing fit to split.

"Britten," says he, "you're fairly done down. I've got the cinch on
you, Britten. Don't you perceive that same?"

Well, of all the fools! My head spun with the thought; not at first
the thought of fear, mind you, though fear followed right enough, but
just with the irony of it all, and the rightdown lunacy which sent me
into this trap as a fly goes into a spider's web. And this man would
suck me dry; I hadn't a doubt of it; a word might cost me my life.

"Well," I rejoined, knowing that my safety depended upon my wits, "and
what if I am? Do you suppose I came here without letting Inspector
Melton know where I was coming? You'd better think it out, old chap.
There may be two at the corner and both on the wrong side. Don't you
make no mistake."

He laughed very quietly, and as though to make his own words good he
put up the shutters on the only window the miserable den of a place
possessed. We were in a kind of twilight now, in a miserably furnished
shanty, with the paper peeling off the walls and the fire-grate all
rusted and the very boards broken beneath our feet. And I believed he
had a pistol in his pocket, and that he would use it if I so much as
lifted my hand.

"Oh," says he presently, and in a moc