im when the cab stopped at
the end of Litany Lane. She gazed about her like one who had been
suddenly set down in a new country; this squalor and vileness, so
familiar to her of old, affected her strangely under the present
conditions. The faces of people at whom she looked remained fresh in
her memory for years after; the long confinement and the excitement
which now possessed her resulted in preternatural acuteness of
observation. Abraham spoke first with several people whom he had
already questioned about Waymark, but they had heard nothing since.

"Are you strong enough for this?" he asked Ida. "Hadn't you better go
back to the cab and wait for me!"

"Don't ask me to do that!" she entreated earnestly. "I _must_ be
active. I have strength now for anything."

Just as she spoke, Mr. Woodstock became aware of a disturbance of some
kind in a duty little tobacconist's shop close at hand. There was a
small crowd at the door, and the sound of wrangling voices came from
within. Such an occurrence was too ordinary to suggest any special
significance, but Abraham would not pass without making some inquiry.
Begging Ida to stand where he left her, he pushed his way into the shop
and listened to what was going on. A lad, well known in these parts as
"Lushy Dick," was, it appeared, charging the tobacconist with cheating
him; he alleged that he had deposited half a sovereign on the counter
in payment for a cigar, and the shopman had given him change as if for
sixpence, maintaining stoutly that sixpence had been the coin given
him, and no half-sovereign at all. When Mr. Woodstock entered, the
quarrel had reached a high pitch.

"Arf a quid!" the tobacconist was exclaiming contemptuously. "I'd like
to know where such as you's likely to git arf a quid from."

Lushy Dick, stung to recklessness by a succession of such remarks,
broke out in vehement self-justification.

"_Would_ yer like to know, y' old ----! Then yer shall, ---- soon! I'm
---- if I don't tell jist the ---- truth, an' take the ----
consequences. It was Slimy as give it me, an' if yer want to know where
Slimy got it, yer 'll 'ave to ---- well find out, 'cos I don't know
myself."

"And how came Slimy to give you half a sovereign?" Mr. Woodstock at
once interposed, speaking with authority.

"Is that you, Mr. Woodstock?" exclaimed the boy, turning round suddenly
at the sound of the voice. "Now, look 'ere, I'm a-goin' to make a ----
clean breast of it. This 'ere ----