ightful scar which might probably be traced to the
same occasion. This man was a returned transport, and his name was
Kags.

'I wish,' said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, 'that you had picked out
some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and had not come
here, my fine feller.'

'Why didn't you, blunder-head!' said Kags.

'Well, I thought you'd have been a little more glad to see me than
this,' replied Mr. Chitling, with a melancholy air.

'Why, look'e, young gentleman,' said Toby, 'when a man keeps himself so
very ex-clusive as I have done, and by that means has a snug house over
his head with nobody a prying and smelling about it, it's rather a
startling thing to have the honour of a wisit from a young gentleman
(however respectable and pleasant a person he may be to play cards with
at conweniency) circumstanced as you are.'

'Especially, when the exclusive young man has got a friend stopping
with him, that's arrived sooner than was expected from foreign parts,
and is too modest to want to be presented to the Judges on his return,'
added Mr. Kags.

There was a short silence, after which Toby Crackit, seeming to abandon
as hopeless any further effort to maintain his usual devil-may-care
swagger, turned to Chitling and said,

'When was Fagin took then?'

'Just at dinner-time--two o'clock this afternoon. Charley and I made
our lucky up the wash-us chimney, and Bolter got into the empty
water-butt, head downwards; but his legs were so precious long that
they stuck out at the top, and so they took him too.'

'And Bet?'

'Poor Bet! She went to see the Body, to speak to who it was,' replied
Chitling, his countenance falling more and more, 'and went off mad,
screaming and raving, and beating her head against the boards; so they
put a strait-weskut on her and took her to the hospital--and there she
is.'

'Wot's come of young Bates?' demanded Kags.

'He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he'll be here
soon,' replied Chitling. 'There's nowhere else to go to now, for the
people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--I
went up there and see it with my own eyes--is filled with traps.'

'This is a smash,' observed Toby, biting his lips. 'There's more than
one will go with this.'

'The sessions are on,' said Kags: 'if they get the inquest over, and
Bolter turns King's evidence: as of course he will, from what he's
said already: they can prove Fagin an accessory bef