"Wot have you got there," said my companion seizing the stone jug and holding it to his nose. The woman was almost frenzied at this attempt, as she believed it was, to deprive her of what was far dearer to her than her life. "Give me back my gin!" she screamed, and dashed forward like a tigress to claw his eyes out. The sergeant seemed satisfied, and handed her back the stone vessel with a motion of disgust.
"That'll do, ole lady," said he, "I'd rather you'd drink that White Satan nor me. I pitys yer precious witles, that's hall, when you drinks it. Where do you live?"
AN EXPLORATION.
"I live's in 'Purty Bill's lodgin.' I'll show it to you for a brown. Come along." We followed her for a short distance, and now and then, as we passed the doorways and courts, some low blackguard would vent a little of his vile or rough humor upon our devoted heads, merely to keep his intellect in play.
"I say, ye pair of duffers, give us tuppence to get a pot o' beer, wont ye; come here, and I'll cash yer check hif you 'ave no small change," said a cut-throat looking rascal of large build who was lying across a door that seemed to open into the earth somewhere. He half rose; fell back on the broken cavern door stupefied with liquor, and began to snore like a wild beast gorged with blood.
"This is an awful district, sir," said the detective. "They doesn't stand on ceremony with you here."
We passed further down the dark street, and a very dark street it was. The atmosphere was very different from that which hung over London Bridge. The air was noisome, and the collected offal in the gutters sent up a frightful stench to the heavens. At the end of the street was a cul de sac, and before we came to it my conductor stopped at a passage, dim under the midnight sky, which ran back for some distance; I could not tell how far, owing to the darkness.
We passed into the court, which seemed to yawn wider as one progressed, between three-storied, tumble-down, dirty brick buildings, and finally we found ourselves in a yard about a hundred feet square, from the opposite side of whose buildings clothes lines depended covered with canvass jackets, ragged highlows, aprons, and two or three sou'westers, beside a lot of female articles of under-linen. There were barrows, hand carts, small jackass carts and baskets, with a few empty barrels piled up in a confused mass in the corner of the yard. Cabbage leaves, bones of fish and animals, potato skins—the remains of carniverous appetites—were strewed all round.
The detective had by this time lit a lantern which he had concealed in his breast, and thus I was enabled to look around me. He said, "This is a rum spot; but never mind, it's safe enough. Now dy'e see that cellar—that's where we are a goin' to spend an hour or two. Come along."