"And what was that?" asked the Resurrection Man, surveying his friend with his serpent-like eyes in a manner that made him actually quail beneath the glance.
"What was it?" repeated the Cracksman, who appeared to hesitate whether he should proceed, or not: "why—I heard a magsman say that you nosed upon poor Crankey Jem, and that was the reason he got lagged and you was acquitted three year ago at the Old Bailey."
"And what did you say to that?" demanded the Resurrection Man, looking from beneath his bushy brows at the Cracksman, as the ghole in eastern mythology may be supposed to gaze on the countenance of him whom he marks for his victim.
"What did I say?" answered the Cracksman in a hoarse whisper: "why—I knocked the fellow down to be sure."
"And you did what you ought to do, and what I should have done if any one had told me that of you," said the Resurrection Man in a tone of the most perfect composure.
While this conversation took place, hurriedly and in whispers, the mysterious stranger continued to smoke his cigar without once glancing around him; and the other inmates of the Dark-House parlour, recovering a little from their panic at the entrance of that individual, made a faint attempt to renew the discourse.
But although the eyes of the stranger were apparently occupied in watching the wreaths of smoke, as they curled upwards to the ceiling, they were in reality intent upon the parlour window, the lower part of which alone was darkened by the sliding shutter that lifted up and down. There was a bright lamp over the front door of the public-house; and thus the heads of all the passengers in the street might be descried, as they passed the window, by the inmates of the parlour.
"I say, Ben," exclaimed one reveller to another, "have you heerd that they're a goin' to lay out a park up by Bonner's Road and Hackney Wick?"
"Yes—the Wictoria Park," was the reply. "On'y fancy giving them poor devils of Spitalfields weavers a park to walk in instead o' filling their bellies. But I 'spose they'll make a preshus deep pond in it."
"What for?" demanded the first speaker.