Mawson held out, he linked arms with Narkom, and together
they passed out, leaving a great peace and a great joy behind them.

"Gad, what an amazing beggar you are!" declared the superintendent,
breaking silence suddenly as soon as they were at a safe distance
from the house. "You'll end your days in the workhouse, you know,
if you continue this sort of tactics. Fancy chucking up a reward
for the sake of a chap you never saw before, and who treated you
like a mere nobody. Why, man alive, you could have had almost any
reward--a thousand pounds if you'd asked it--for finding a priceless
thing like that."

"I fancy I've helped to find something that is more priceless still,
my friend, and it's cheap at the price."

"But a thousand pounds, Cleek! a thousand pounds! God's truth, man,
think what you could do with all that money--think what you could
buy!"

"To be sure; but think what you _can't_! Not one day of lost
innocence, not one hour of spoilt youth! It isn't because they have a
natural tendency toward evil that _all_ men go wrong. It is not
what they possess but what they lack that's at the bottom of the
downfall of four fifths of them. Given such ingredients as a young
chap suffering under a sense of personal injury, a feeling that
the world's against him, that he has neither a home nor a friend to
stand by him in his hour of need, and the devil will whip up the
mixture and manufacture a criminal in less than no time. It is
easier to save him while he's worth the saving than it is to pull
him up after he has gone down the line, Mr. Narkom, and if by
refusing to accept so many pounds, shillings, and pence, a man can do
the devil out of a favourable opportunity----Oh, well, let it go at
that. Come on, please. We are still as far as ever from the 'game' we
set out to bag, my friend; and as this district seems to be as
unpromising in that respect as all the others--where next?"

CHAPTER XXIV

"I'm bothered if I know," returned Narkom helplessly. "Gad! I'm
at my wits' end. We seem to be as far as ever from any clue to
that devilish pair and unless you can suggest something----" He
finished the sentence by taking off his hat, and looking up at Cleek
hopefully, and patting his bald spot with a handkerchief which
diffused a more or less agreeable odour of the latest Parisian
perfume.

"H'm!" said Cleek, reflectively. "We might cross the Heath and have
a look round Gospel Oak, if you like. It's a goodish bit