lity as it affected the relations of
rich and poor were ever primitive and unstable. "If this old thief gets
half a sovereign, what's it matter?" he would argue; "the other man
stole his money, I suppose, and can well afford to pay up." Here was a
gospel preached every day in Thrawl Street. He had never stopped to ask
its truth.

Alban crossed St. James' Street furtively, and climbed, as an athlete
should climb, the boarding which defended the entrance to this amazing
habitation. A contented watchman, dozing by a comfortable fire, cared
little who came or went and rarely bestirred himself to ask the
question. There were two entrances to the caves: one cramped and
difficult, the other broad and open; and you took your choice of them
according to the position of the policeman on the beat. This night, or
rather this morning, of the day following upon the meeting in Union
Street, discovered Alban driven to the more hazardous way. His quick eye
had detected, on the far side of the enclosure, an amiable flirtation
between a man of law and a lady of the dusters; and avoiding both
discreetly, he slipped into a trench of the newly made foundations and
crawled as swiftly through an aperture which this descent revealed.

Here, laid bare by the picks and shovels of twentieth-century Trade
Unionism, was a veritable Gothic arch, bricked up to the height of a
tall man's waist, but open at the tympanum. Alban hoisted himself to the
aperture and, slipping through, his feet discovered the reeking floor of
a dank and dripping subway; and guiding himself now by hands
outstretched and fingers touching the fungi of the walls, he went on
with confidence until the roof lifted above him and the watch-fires of
the confraternity were disclosed. He had come by now into a vast cellar
not very far from the Carlton Hotel itself. There were offshoots
everywhere, passages more remote, the arches as of crypts, smaller
apartments, odd corners which had guarded the casks five hundred years
ago. Each of these could show you its little company safe harbored for
the night; each had some face from which Master Timidity might well
avert his eyes. But Alban went in amongst them as though he had been
their friend. They knew his very footstep, the older "lags" would
declare.

"All well, Jack?"

"All well, old cove."

"The Panorama come along?"

"Straight art of the coffee shawp, s'help me blind."

"Ship come in?"

"Two tharsand next Toosday--same as us