he 'ad been.
"Seventeen years come Michaelmas," she ses, "and never a cross word.
Nothing was too good for me. Nothing. I 'ad only to ask to 'ave."

"Well, he's gorn now," ses Joe, "and we thought we ought to come round
and tell you."

"So as you can tell the police," ses the other chap.

That was 'ow I came to hear of it fust; a policeman told me that night as
I stood outside the gate 'aving a quiet pipe. He wasn't shedding tears;
his only idea was that Sam 'ad got off too easy.

"Well, well," I ses, trying to pacify 'im, "he won't bite no more
fingers; there's no policemen where he's gorn to."

He went off grumbling and telling me to be careful, and I put my pipe out
and walked up and down the wharf thinking. On'y a month afore I 'ad lent
Sam fifteen shillings on a gold watch and chain wot he said an uncle 'ad
left 'im. I wasn't wearing it because 'e said 'is uncle wouldn't like
it, but I 'ad it in my pocket, and I took it out under one of the lamps
and wondered wot I ought to do.

My fust idea was to take it to Mrs. Bullet, and then, all of a sudden,
the thought struck me: "Suppose he 'adn't come by it honest?"

I walked up and down agin, thinking. If he 'adn't, and it was found out,
it would blacken his good name and break 'is pore wife's 'art. That's
the way I looked at it, and for his sake and 'er sake I determined to
stick to it.

I felt 'appier in my mind when I 'ad decided on that, and I went round to
the Bear's Head and 'ad a pint. Arter that I 'ad another, and then I
come back to the wharf and put the watch and chain on and went on with my
work.

Every time I looked down at the chain on my waistcoat it reminded me of
Sam. I looked on to the river and thought of 'im going down on the ebb.
Then I got a sort o' lonesome feeling standing on the end of the jetty
all alone, and I went back to the Bear's Head and 'ad another pint.

They didn't find the body, and I was a'most forgetting about Sam when one
evening, as I was sitting on a box waiting to get my breath back to 'ave
another go at sweeping, Joe Peel, Sam's mate, came on to the wharf to see
me.

He came in a mysterious sort o' way that I didn't like: looking be'ind
'im as though he was afraid of being follered, and speaking in a whisper
as if 'e was afraid of being heard. He wasn't a man I liked, and I was
glad that the watch and chain was stowed safe away in my trowsis-pocket.

"I've 'ad a shock, watchman," he ses.

"Oh!" I ses.