he French, is Billy. He'd do his
dags for him, Billy would, if he could get at him. Wouldn't you, Billy?
I say, Tim, whose voice was that I heard in the Bar just now, naming me
by name?"

"Ah, I was just on telling you. He walks in and he says to me, when does
Moses Wardle come in here, he says, and how long does he stop, mostly?
And I says to him ..."

"What sort of a feller to look at?" said Uncle Mo, interrupting. "Old or
young? Long? Short? Anything about him to go by?"

This called for consideration. "Not what you would call an average
party. His gills was too much slewed to one side." This was illustrated
by a finger hooking down the corner of the mouth. "Looked as if his best
clothes was being took care of for him."

"What did he want o' me?" Uncle Mo's interest seemed roused.

"I was telling of you. When did you come and how long did you stop? Best
part of an hour, I says, and you was here now. You'll find him in the
parlour, I says. Go in and see, I says. And I thought to find him in
here, having took my eyes off him for the moment."

"He's not been in here," said Uncle Mo, emptying his pipe prematurely,
and apparently hurrying off without taking his half of mild. "Which way
did he go?"

"Which way did the party go, Soozann?" said the host to his wife in the
bar. Who replied:--"Couldn't say. Said he'd be back in half an hour, and
went. Fancy he went to the right, but couldn't say."

"_He_ won't be back in half an hour," said Uncle Mo. "Not if he's the
man I take him for. You see, he's one of these here chaps that tells
lies. You've heard o' them; seen one, p'r'aps?" Mr. Jeffcoat testified
that he had, in his youth, and that rumours of their existence still
reached him at odd times. Those who listen about in the byways of London
will hear endless conversation on this model, always conducted with the
most solemn gravity, with a perfect understanding of its inversions and
perversions.

Uncle Mo hurried away, leaving instructions that his half-pint should be
bestowed on any person whose tastes lay in that direction. Mr. Jeffcoat
might meet with such a one. You never could tell. He hastened home as
fast as his enemy Gout permitted, and saw when he turned into the short
street at the end of which Sapps lay hidden, that something abnormal was
afoot. There stood Dr. Dalrymple's pill-box, wondering, no doubt, why it
had carried a segment of an upper circle to such a Court as this. If it
had been the Doctor hi