ther ran huntedly
into the room. He began an endless tale of a hackney coachman who had
stood in front of the door of his coach to prevent his number being
taken; of a crowd of caddee-smashers, who had hustled him and filched
his purse. "Of course, I made a fight for it," he said, "a damn good
fight, considering. It's in the blood. But the watch came, and, in
short--on such an occasion as this there is no time for words--I passed
the night in the watch-house. Many and many a night I passed there when
I and Lord------But I am losing time."

"You ain't fit to walk the streets of London alone, sir," the turnkey
said.

My father gave him a corner of his narrow-lidded eyes. "My man," he
said, "I walked the streets with the highest in the land before your
mother bore you in Bridewell, or whatever jail it was."

"Oh, no offence," the turnkey muttered.

I said, "Did you find Cowper, sir? Will he give evidence?"

"Jackie," he said agitatedly, as if he were afraid of offending me, "he
said you had filched his wife's rings."

That, in fact, was what Major Cowper _had_ said--that I had dropped into
their ship near Port Royal Heads, and had afterwards gone away with the
pirates who had filched his wife's rings. My father, in his indignation,
had not even deigned to ask him for the address of Jamaica planters in
London; and on his way back to find a solicitor he had come into contact
with those street rowdies and the watch. He had only just come from
before the magistrates.

A man with one eye poked his head suddenly from behind the Grand Jury
door. He jerked his head in my direction.

"True bill against that 'ere," he said, then drew his head in again.

"Jackie, boy," my father said, putting a thin hand on my wrist, and
gazing imploringly into my eyes, "I'm... I'm ... I can't tell you
how...."

I said, "It doesn't matter, father." I felt a foretaste of how my past
would rise up to crush me. Cowper had let that wife of his coerce
him into swearing my life away. I remembered vividly his blubbering
protestations of friendship when I persuaded Tomas Castro to return him
his black deed-box with the brass handle, on that deck littered with
rubbish.... "Oh, God bless you, God bless you. You have saved me from
starvation...." There had been tears in his old blue eyes. "If you need
it I will go anywhere... do anything to help you. On the honour of a
gentleman and a soldier." I had, of course, recommended his wife to give
up her