“I don’t quite know as I do, yet,” was the reply.
“Well, look here, I want to get back. You take charge of him. I found him on a doorstep in Great Coram Street. There’s his bundle. If he don’t give a good account of himself, have it entered and lock him up.”
“All right,” said the other, after a few moments’ hesitation.
“Then I’m off,” said the first man; and he left me in charge of the big constable, who stood staring down at me so fiercely, as I thought, that I looked to right and left for a way of escape.
“None o’ that, sir,” he said sharply, in the words and way of the other, whose heavy footsteps were now echoing down the passage. “Lookye here, if you try to run away, I’ve only got to shout, and hundreds of thousands of pleecemen will start round about to stop yer.”
As he spoke he pushed me into a Windsor arm-chair, where I sat as if in a cage, while he held up one finger to shake in my face.
“As the Clerkenwell magistrate said t’other day, the law’s a great network, and spreads wide. You’re new in the net o’ the law, young fellow, and you can’t get out. Just look here, we knows a deal in the law and police, and I can find out in two twos whether you are telling me the truth or doing the artful.”
“Please, sir—”
“Hold your tongue, sir! You can make your defence when your time comes; and mind this, it’s my dooty to tell you that what you says now may be used in evidence again you.”
Thus silenced, I stood gazing up in his big-whiskered face, that seemed to loom over me, in the gaslight, and wondered why there should be so much form and ceremony over taking my word.