the whole country at large."

"What is it you want me to do?" he asked suspiciously. "He treated me
fair, and he'll take it mean of me if I help you to nab him."

"I don't want you to do anything but to drive me to the side street
where you put him down. Then you can take your sovereign and be off
home as quick as you like. Do you agree?"

He hesitated for a space in which a man could have counted twenty, and
then set his glass upon the counter.

"I'll do it," he said. "I'll drive yer there, not for the suvering, but
for the good of the country yer speaks about. Come on."

I gave my own man his money, and then followed the other out to his cab.
He mounted to his box, not without some help, and we presently set off.
Whether it was the effect of the refreshment he had imbibed, or whether
it was mere elation of spirits I cannot say, the fact, however, remains
that for the whole of the journey, which occupied ten or twelve minutes
he howled vociferously. A more joyous cabman could scarcely have been
discovered in all that part of London. At last he pulled his horse to a
standstill, and descended from his seat.

"This 'ere's the place," he said, "and that's the street he bolted down.
Yer can't mistake it. Now let's have a look at yer suvering, guvner, and
then I'll be off home to bed, and it's about time too."

I paid him the sum I had promised him, and then made my way down the
narrow street, in the direction Hayle had taken. It was not more than a
couple of hundred yards long, and was hemmed in on either hand by
squalid cottages. As if to emphasize the misery of the locality, and
perhaps in a measure to account for it, at the further end I discovered
a gin-palace, whose flaring lights illuminated the streets on either
hand with brazen splendour. A small knot of loafers were clustered on
the pavement outside the public, and these were exactly the men I
wanted. Addressing myself to them I inquired how long they had been in
their present position.

"Best part of an hour, guv'ner," said one of them, pushing his hands
deep down into his pockets, and executing a sort of double shuffle as he
spoke. "Ain't doin' any harm 'ere, I 'ope. We was 'opin' as 'ow a gent
like yourself would come along in the course of the evening just to ask
us if we was thirsty, and wot we'd take for to squench it."

"You shall have something to squench it, if you can answer the questions
I am going to ask you," I replied. "Did either of you see