to
say to himself that he should know the Old Bailey again by the cut of
its jib next time he came across it.

In reply, he scorned circumlocution, saying briefly:--"Wot'll it come
to? Wot are you good for? That's the p'int."

"You tell me no lies and you'll see. There's an old widow-lady down this
Court. Don't you go and say there ain't!"

"There's any number. Which old widder?"

"Name of Daverill. Old enough to be your father's granny."

"No sich a name! There's one a sight older than that though--last house
down the Court--top bell."

"How old do you make her out?"

"Two 'underd next birthday!" But Michael perceived in his questioner's
eye a possible withdrawal of his offer of a consideration, and amended
his statement:--"Ninety-nine, p'raps!--couldn't say to arf a minute."

"House at the end where the old cock in a blue shirt's smoking a
pipe--is that it?"

"Ah!--up two flights of stairs. But she can't see you, nor yet hear you,
to speak of."

"Who's the old cock?"

"This little boy's uncle. He b'longs to the Fancy. 'Eavyweight he was,
wunst upon a time." And Dave Wardle, who had joined the colloquy, gave
confirmatory evidence: "He's moy Uncle Moses, he is. And he's moy sister
Dolly's Uncle Moses, he is. And moy sister Dolly she had a piece of koyk
with a beadle in it. She _had_. A dead beadle!" But this evidence was
ruled out of court by general consent; or rather, perhaps, it should be
said that the witness remained in the box giving evidence of the same
nature for his own satisfaction, while the court's attention wandered.

"Oh--he was a heavyweight, was he? An ugly customer, I should reckon."
The stranger said this more to himself than to the boys. But he spoke
direct to Michael with the question, "What was it you said was the old
lady's name, now?"

The boy, shrewd as he was, was but a boy after all. Was it wonderful
that he should accept the implication that he had given the name? Thrown
off his guard he answered:--"Name of Richards." Whereupon Dave, who was
still stuttering on melodiously about the dead monster in Dolly's cake,
endeavoured to correct his friend without complete success.

"Pitcher, is it?" said the stranger. Michael, disgusted to find that he
had been betrayed into giving a name, though he was far from clear why
it should have been reserved, was glad of Dave's perverted version, as
replacing matters on their former footing. But the repetition of the
name, by voices the stimu