"WONT YOU TAKE SOMETHING?"
"Purty Bill" bustled about and found two broken stools for myself and conductor, and placed them near the fire, saying in a hospitable way:
"Gent's, this ere night is werry wet, and you might as well dry yourselves. Sit up nearer the fire. Won't ye take somethink?" and he put his huge paws on the detectives knee in a friendly way. "This is agoin to be a topper of a meal to-night, and all of us will welcome ye gents to our 'umble board. So make yerselves at 'ome, and peck a bit when it's biled."
"Wot's the idea of getting up this cram at this time of the morning, Bill? It's near two o'clock. Won't it interfere with yer lodgers' precious digestion?"
"Hinterfere with it? Wot, vith one of my lodgers? Rayther! No. Vy there's Kicking Billy as heats six blessed meals a day, and then he's all the time a lookin' for sangwiches and pigs trotters a-tween meals. Urt their digestion hindeed? Vy they 'av got stomax like them ere hanimals wot performs at Hastleys. You knows Slap-Up Peter. You used to be a stone swallower in the purfession," and the proprietor touched a man who was squatted on his haunches, smoking a dirty stump of clay pipe, with his foot. Slap-Up Peter drew the pipe out of his mouth, shook the ashes from it, dusted the venerable relic with a greasy red handkerchief, carefully placed it in his breeches pocket, and said:
"Vy don't ye keep yer big feet to yerself? Wot hanimals do you mean? Do you mean cammomiles?"
"Yes, them hanimals vith the 'umps on their hugly backs. You see, sir, Slap-Up Peter has had a good eddycation in his time, and he knows the names of the hanimals, 'cos he used to travel with the circus afore he went on the tramp to swallow stones and snakes."
"Peter," said the detective, "you must 'ave quite an 'istry. Could you tell us somethink about your past life, my boy?"
Slap-Up Peter had a melancholy face. The skin was tanned, the eyes large, black, and bulging, and the nose like a hawk's. His clothes were worn and greasy; his face was gaunt, and when he moved his body the bones seemed to creak and grate as if they had been joined together by metallic hinges. There was something mournful about the man—some queer story attached to him, I felt.