peeping
ruefully, were all the visible raiment of the body. The clothes lay in
heavy swathes and folds over the miserable bag of bones that had once
been a tall man. The peaked blue face was half hidden by a fell of
iron-gray hair, and a grizzled beard hung over the breast.

The two men stood for some moments staring at the corpse. A wretched
woman in a thin gray cotton dress had come down from the bridge, and
shivered beside the body for a moment.

"He's a goner," was her criticism. "I wish _I_ was."

With this aspiration she shivered back into the fog again, walking
on her unknown way. By this time a dozen people had started up from
nowhere, and were standing in a tight ring round the body. The behavior
of the people was typical of London gazers. No one made any remark,
or offered any suggestion; they simply stared with all their eyes and
souls, absorbed in the unbought excitement of the spectacle. They were
helpless, idealess, interested and unconcerned.

"Run and fetch a peeler, Bill," said Tommy at last.

"Peeler be hanged! Bloomin' likely I am to find a peeler. Fetch him
yourself."

"Sulky devil you are," answered Tommy, who was certainly of milder
mood; whereas Bill seemed a most unalluring example of the virtue of
Temperance. It is true that he had only been "Blue Ribbon" since the end
of his Christmas bout--that is, for nearly a fortnight--and Virtue, a
precarious tenant, was not yet comfortable in her new lodgings.

Before Tommy returned from his quest the dusk had deepened into night
The crowd round the body in the pea-coat had grown denser, and it might
truly be said that "the more part knew not wherefore they had come
together." The centre of interest was not a fight, they were sure,
otherwise the ring would have been swaying this way and that. Neither
was it a dispute between a cabman and his fare: there was no sound of
angry repartees. It might be a drunken woman, or a man in a fit, or a
lost child. So the outer circle of spectators, who saw nothing, waited,
and patiently endured till the moment of revelation should arrive.
Respectable people who passed only glanced at the gathering; respectable
people may wonder, but they never do find out the mystery within a
London crowd. On the extreme fringe of the mob were some amateurs who
had just been drinking in the _Hit or Miss_. They were noisy, curious,
and impatient.

At last Tommy arrived with two policeman, who, acting on his warning,
had brough