"Yes, sir. He'll see you into the Strand, sir."
"Very well then, here you are. Good night. Come, Miriam."
Saying which the respectable elderly gentleman passed a coin to X103, and proceeded to button-hole his fellow. They vanished into the thickness, and virtue rewarded turned his bull's-eye on to the palm of his hand.
"Ten bob in gold! I'm blowed! He's a good 'un after all, that old rib. Seemed to know her name, and use it pat enough. H'm!"
And in that last grunt there was a whole world of possibility.
CHAPTER II.
A STRANGE ARRANGEMENT.
When, conceivably out of gratitude and pure philanthropy, this respectable elderly gentleman took this apparently disreputable, and, by no means elderly female, under his wing, and in the early morning hours appeared at the door of a sedate and wholly decorous hostelry, with a demand for a night's lodging for them both, he ran a very great risk of being misunderstood. They had been passed on from policeman to policeman with every care, though the pilotage dues were by no means inconsiderable. And, strange to say, they were admitted without parley.
Now Miriam had expected a vastly different reception. She was in no way oblivious to the appearance she presented, and was naturally inclined to exaggerate, rather than otherwise, its effect, notwithstanding the irreproachable bearing of her cavalier. The fact that she was received without demur by the landlady, made it, in her mind, only the more remarkable. She had a fair idea of the tendencies of her sex. But evidently the gentleman was known here, such knowledge being—it was equally evident—beyond question, for Mrs. Perks, to judge by the look of her, was not one to grant the benefit of any doubt. Her effect upon blue litmus paper would assuredly have been most striking and instantaneous. In spite of everything Miriam fell to thinking. But she was too weary and famished to cogitate for long. She decided to accept the circumstances as they were.