“Which one?” asked Jim, as the boys leaned forward to get a better look.
“The man who was talking to McCarney on the station platform,” explained Clara, so excited that she stammered. Mabel’s earnest eyes were fixed upon her. “I’d know that face, anywhere. He’s horrid looking, isn’t he? Like a snake or something scaly. Look at those lob ears of his.”
She glanced up at the boys just in time to catch the look that flashed between them.
“Then you do know him!” she exclaimed triumphantly. “Now maybe you’ll tell me his name.”
“His name,” said Joe slowly, all fun temporarily gone from his eyes, “is Lemblow.”
“And his reputation,” added Jim, with a faint grin, “is conspicuous by its absence.”
“Oh, I knew it!” cried Clara, triumph giving place to real anxiety. “I knew he was a wretch from the first. Oh, Jim, what does it mean?”
Jim looked at Joe and slowly shook his head.
“It’s hard to tell what it means,” he said gravely.
“I’ll jolly well say it is!” burst from Reggie, and at his vehemence the monocle, as though shocked by such an improper display of feeling, toppled from his eye. Reggie picked it up and nervously replaced it, squinting his eye as he did so till he looked like a scheming old magpie. “But one thing I do know, old chappie,” he added, more mildly, “these two men are a menace to the Giant team. You might even go so far as to say they are a menace to the Game itself—you really might, you know!”