‘It’s all your fault.’
‘How do you make that out? It was you quarrelled first.’
‘You’re a liar!’
‘Oh, there’s no talking to you!’
He shuffled with his feet, then rose.
‘Where can I see you on Wednesday morning?’ asked Clem. ‘I want to hear about that girl.’
‘It can’t be Wednesday morning. I tell you I shall be getting the sack next thing; they’ve promised it. Two days last week I wasn’t at the shop, and one day this. It can’t go on.’
His companion retorted angrily, and for five minutes they stood in embittered colloquy. It ended in Bob’s turning away and going out into the street. Clem followed, and they walked westwards in silence. Reaching City Road, and crossing to the corner where lowers St. Luke’s Hospital—grim abode of the insane, here in the midst of London’s squalor and uproar—they halted to take leave. The last words they exchanged, after making an appointment, were of brutal violence.
This was two days after Clara Hewett’s arrival in London, and the same fog still hung about the streets, allowing little to be seen save the blurred glimmer of gas. Bob sauntered through it, his hands in his pockets, observant of nothing; now and then a word escaped his lips, generally an oath. Out of Old Street he turned into Whitecross Street, whence by black and all but deserted ways—Barbican and Long Lane—he emerged into West Smithfield. An alley in the shadow of Bartholomew’s Hospital brought him to a certain house: just as he was about to knock at the door it opened, and Jack Bartley appeared on the threshold. They exchanged a ‘Holloa!’ of surprise, and after a whispered word or two on the pavement, went in. They mounted the stairs to a bedroom which Jack occupied. When the door was closed:
‘Bill’s got copped!’ whispered Bartley.