'Very well,' said the other. 'But you're in the wrong box, and that you'll find. You had better come along to the station, sir.'
'Keep that fellow from getting hold of the woman—you two, and we'll go together,' said Falconer.
Bewildered with the rapid sequence of events, I was following in the crowd. Falconer looked about till he saw me, and gave me a nod which meant come along. Before we reached Bow Street, however, the offending policeman, who had been walking a little behind in conversation with one of the others, advanced to Falconer, touched his hat, and said something, to which Falconer replied.
'Remember, I have my eye upon you,' was all I heard, however, as he left the crowd and rejoined me. We turned and walked eastward again.
The storm kept on intermittently, but the streets were rather more crowded than usual notwithstanding.
'Look at that man in the woollen jacket,' said Falconer. 'What a beautiful outline of face! There must be something noble in that man.'
'I did not see him,' I answered, 'I was taken up with a woman's face, like that of a beautiful corpse. It's eyes were bright. There was gin in its brain.'
The streets swarmed with human faces gleaming past. It was a night of ghosts.
There stood a man who had lost one arm, earnestly pumping bilge-music out of an accordion with the other, holding it to his body with the stump. There was a woman, pale with hunger and gin, three match-boxes in one extended hand, and the other holding a baby to her breast. As we looked, the poor baby let go its hold, turned its little head, and smiled a wan, shrivelled, old-fashioned smile in our faces.
Another happy baby, you see, Mr. Gordon,' said Falconer. 'A child, fresh from God, finds its heaven where no one else would. The devil could drive woman out of Paradise; but the devil himself cannot drive the Paradise out of a woman.'