"Stop your whining," said Dick, "and cut it short. What is it you want?"
"Quartern o' rum."
The answer seemed to be so settled a formula when a question of this kind was put to him that it mechanically popped out like a bullet from a gun. Pending compliance with his demand, as to which Dick did not hesitate, and the pouring of the liquor down his throat, as if it were the mouth of a vat, there was an interval of silence. Then, with a wandering finger on the portrait, Mr. Higgins "cut it short" in two words.
"True bill?"
"True bill," replied Dick, with an assenting nod, "and what of it?"
"What of it?" cried Mr. Higgins, with venom in his voice. "Rope and grapnel of it!" He thrust his twitching face forward to within an inch or two of Dick's.
"Oh, that's the game," said Dick, concealing his uneasiness. "And what a game it is--oh, what a game it is! Says I to myself, when I gets detective Lambert's evidence read out to me--'there's a man for you! with eyes all over him, and one to spare'--says I to myself when I hears that evidence, 'rope and grapnel over the wall--by the Lord, he's hit it!' Then I asks the boy that's reading the paper to me, 'And who may that be the picture of?' 'That,' says he, 'is the picture of Mr. Dick Remington, nephew of Inspector Robson, and cousin of the young lady as goes and marries the son of Samuel Boyd on the sly.' He's a sharp little boy, almost as sharp as you, Mr. Dick Remington. 'O-ho!' says I to him, 'and does Mr. Dick Remington give evidence at the inquest?' 'Yes, he does,' says the boy, and he reads it out to me. 'You've missed something,' I says. 'You've missed what Mr. Dick Remington says about the rope and grapnel.' 'He don't say nothing at all about it,' says the boy. 'It must be in another paper,' I says, and I buys 'em all, and has 'em all read out to me, word for word, and if you'll believe me there ain't a word in one of 'em about the use that Mr. Dick Remington makes of the rope and grapnel he bought of a honest tradesman as sweats hisself thin to get a living, and then can't get it. That's what I call a coinci-dence. What do you call it?"
"I call it a coinci-dence, too," said Dick, with a searching gaze at the disreputable figure, "especially when it happens to an honest tradesman like Mr. Higgins." There was a gleam of suspicion and doubt in Mr. Higgins's eye as he twitched up his head at this remark, which caused Dick to add, with meaning emphasis on the words, "To such a very honest tradesman as Mr. Higgins! Something got in your throat?"
"Caught my breath," gasped Mr. Higgins, choking and glaring.
At any other time the contortions he made to recover it would have amused Dick, but just now he was not in the mood for any kind of light diversion. Still it was with a mocking air that he contemplated Mr. Higgins, and in a mocking tone that he repeated for the second time,