"Will it do if I come down and speak to you outside?" said Leander.
There was a consultation between the two at this, and at the end of it the first man said: "It's all the same to us, where we have our little confabulation. Come down, and look sharp about it!"
Leander came down, taking care to shut the street door behind him. "You ain't the police?" he said, apprehensively.
They each took an arm, and walked him roughly off between them towards Queen Square. "We'll show you who we are," they said.
"I—I demand your authority for this," gasped Leander. "What am I charged with?"
They had brought him into the gloomiest part of the square, where the houses, used as offices in the daytime, were now dark and deserted. Here they jammed him up against the railings, and stood guard over him, while he was alarmed to perceive a suppressed ferocity in the faces of both.
"What are you charged with? Grr——! For 'arf a pint I'd knock your bloomin 'ed in!" said the coarser gentleman of the two—an evasive form of answer which did not seem to promise a pleasant interview.
"FOR 'ARF A PINT I'D KNOCK YOUR BLOOMIN' 'ED IN!"