This playful conversation was not interrupted by the warder in attendance, who looked on as the operation was performed, and occasionally indulged in a smile as some pertinent remark fell from the lips of the perruquier.
After the shaving and cropping the barber wished Peace good-bye, bade him keep his spirits up, and hope for the best.
What that best was he did not say, but he tripped merrily out of the cell, with a nod to its occupant, and once more our hero found himself alone.
CHAPTER CXLIX.
THE TROUBLES OF MRS. PEACE.
After Peace’s arrest, trial, and conviction, the house in the Evalina-road was no longer a home for his miserable partner.
Mrs. Peace and the woman Thompson could not agree, and this, in addition to other circumstances, caused Mrs. Peace to make a precipitate retreat from the neighbourhood of Peckham, and Mrs. Thompson was left to pursue her own erratic course.
There was no help for this. It was not at all likely that the two women would agree in the absence of their master.
Mrs. Peace left Peckham, and at once proceeded to Hull, and from thence to Sheffield. But the police were actively engaged in ferreting out every scrap of information which might lead to the detection of other crimes committed by our hero.
As a natural consequence his miserable partner was suspected, and after some searching inquiries she was arrested and taken before the sitting magistrates at Sheffield, as will be seen from the following report:—