s been particularly worried about you, Joe. So when I
was coming away he asked me to look you up if I had time, and let him
know how you was getting on, seeing that none of his family has gone near
him for a matter of three years or so, though there is one regular
visiting day each week."

"I don't want to see him no more," said Joe. "He's no good."

"That's a nice way for a boy to talk about his own father," said Mr.
Kemp, in a reproving tone. "I don't know what the young generation is
coming to."

"If you want to send him word about me, you can tell him that I'm not
going to be a thief," said Joe defiantly.

"No," said Mr. Kemp tauntingly, "you'd sooner be a nark."

"Yes, I would," said the boy.

"And that's what you are now," declared the man wrathfully. "You're a
nark for that fellow Crewe. I know all about you."

"I'm earning an honest living," said Joe.

"As a nark," said Mr. Kemp, with a sneer.

"I'm earning an honest living," said the boy doggedly. So much of his
youth had been spent among the criminal classes that he still retained
the feeling that there was an indelible stigma attached to those
individuals described as narks.

"How can any one earn a respectable honest living by being a nark?" asked
Mr. Kemp contemptuously. "And more than that, it's one of the best men
that ever breathed that you are a-spying on. I'll have you know that he's
a friend of mine. That is to say he's done things for me that I ain't
likely to forget. There's nothing I won't do for him, if the chance comes
my way. I'll see that no harm happens to him through you and your Mr.
Crewe. You've got to stop this here spying. Stop it at once, do you
understand? For if you don't, by God, I'll deal with you so that you'll
do no more spying in this world! And I'd have you and your master know
that I'm a man what means what he says." Mr. Kemp shook his fist angrily
at Joe as he moved away to the door of the loft after having delivered
his menacing warning. "My last words to you is, Stop it!" he said, as he
turned to go down the stairs.

Half an hour later Mr. Kemp entered the lounge of Verney's Hotel as
though in quest of some one. Most of the hotel guests had finished their
after-dinner coffee and liqueurs, and the hall was comparatively empty,
but a few who remained raised their eyes in well-bred protest at the
intrusion of a member of the lower orders into the corridor of an
exclusive hotel. Mr. Kemp felt somewhat out of place, a