“So you’re here, old chap?” said la Pouraille to Jacques Collin. And, arm-in-arm with his two acolytes, he barred the way to the new arrival. “Why, Boss, have you got yourself japanned?” he went on.
“I hear you have nobbled our pile” (stolen our money), le Biffon added, in a threatening tone.
“You have just got to stump up the tin!” said Fil-de-Soie.
The three questions were fired at him like three pistol-shots.
“Do not make game of an unhappy priest sent here by mistake,” Jacques Collin replied mechanically, recognizing his three comrades.
“That is the sound of his pipe, if it is not quite the cut of his mug,” said la Pouraille, laying his hand on Jacques Collin’s shoulder.
This action, and the sight of his three chums, startled the “Boss” out of his dejection, and brought him back to a consciousness of reality; for during that dreadful night he had lost himself in the infinite spiritual world of feeling, seeking some new road.
“Do not blow the gaff on your Boss!” said Jacques Collin in a hollow threatening tone, not unlike the low growl of a lion. “The reelers are here; let them make fools of themselves. I am faking to help a pal who is awfully down on his luck.”
He spoke with the unction of a priest trying to convert the wretched, and a look which flashed round the yard, took in the warders under the archways, and pointed them out with a wink to his three companions.
“Are there not narks about? Keep your peepers open and a sharp lookout. Don’t know me, Nanty parnarly, and soap me down for a priest, or I will do for you all, you and your molls and your blunt.”