“What indeed! But never mind him now. A shilling of mine is going your way to-night, Deputy. You have just taken in a lodger I have been speaking to; an infirm woman with a cough.”

“Puffer,” assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recognition, and smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head very much on one side and his eyes very much out of their places: “Hopeum Puffer.”

“What is her name?”

“’Er Royal Highness the Princess Puffer.”

“She has some other name than that; where does she live?”

“Up in London. Among the Jacks.”

“The sailors?”

“I said so; Jacks; and Chayner men: and hother Knifers.”

“I should like to know, through you, exactly where she lives.”

“All right. Give us ’old.”