Without waiting to ask questions or give explanations, the three thieves fell tooth and nail upon the provender.
"I knowed you'd come to this here crib, because Bill don't dare go to the boozing-ken till the affair of the Court's blowed over," said the Cracksman, when his meal was terminated; "and so I thought I'd jine you. Arter I left the place out by Clapton——"
"And how the devil did you get away?" demanded Dick.
"Just the same as you did. It would have sarved you right if I'd never spoke to you agin, and blowed you at the ken into the bargain; but I thought to myself, thinks I, 'It must be someot very strange that made the Flairer and the Bolter cut their lucky and leave their pal in the lurch; so let's hear wot they has to say for themselves fust.' Then, as I come along, I found a purse in a gentleman's pocket just opposite Bethnal Green New Church; and that put me into good humour. So I looked in at the ken, got the grub and the bingo, and come on here."
"You're a reg'lar trump, Tom!" ejaculated Dick Flairer; "and I'll stick to you like bricks from this moment till I die. The fact is—me and Bill has told you about that young feller which we throwed down the trap some four or five year back."
"Yes—I remember."
"Well—we seed him to-night."
"To-night! What—at the crib up there?"
"The swell that you got a grip on in the dark, was the very self-same one."
"Then he must have got clear off—that's all!" cried the Cracksman. "It was no ghost—but rale plump flesh and hot blood, I'll swear."