"By Jove!" said Charles, "do you know that you are a deuced good fellow? I am sorry that I was rude to you, but I am in trouble, and irritated. I hope you'll forgive me."
"Not another word, sir," said the inspector. "Come and look here, sir. You may never see such a sight again. Our people daren't go in. This, sir, is, I believe, about the worst court in London."
"I thought," said Charles, quite forgetting his top-boots, and speaking, "de haut en bas" as in old times—"I thought that your Rosemary Lane carried off the palm as being a lively neighbourhood."
"Lord bless you," said the inspector, "nothing to this;—look here."
They advanced to the end of the arch, and looked in. It was as still as death, but it was as light as day, for there were candles burning in every window.
"Why," said Charles, "the court is empty. I can run across. Let me go; I am certain I can get across."
"Don't be a lunatic, sir;" said the inspector, holding him tight; "wait till I give you the word, unless you want six months in Guy's Hospital."
Charles soon saw the inspector was right. There were three houses on each side of the court. The centre one on the right was a very large one, which was approached on each side by a flight of three steps, guarded by iron railings, which, in meeting, formed a kind of platform or rostrum. This was Mr. Malone's house, whose wife chose, for family reasons, to call herself Miss Ophelia Flanigan.
The court was silent and hushed, when, from the door exactly opposite to this one, there appeared a tall and rather handsome young man, with a great frieze coat under one arm, and a fire-shovel over his shoulder.
This was Mr. Dennis Moriarty, junior. He advanced to the arch, so close to Charles and the inspector that they could have touched him, and then walked down the centre of the court, dragging the coat behind him, lifting his heels defiantly high at every step, and dexterously beating a "chune on the bare head of um wid the fire-shovel. Hurroo!"