"Then you're out on business?"
"You couldn't have guessed better, sir. We're here with the nets and there will be herrings to salt in the morning. If you care to wait five minutes, you may look into the bundle. Here's two or three of them coming along now and fine music they're making, I must say. Just step aside a minute, sir, while we give a hand. That's a woman's voice and she's not been to the Tabernacle. I shouldn't wonder if it was the flower girl that hobnobs with the parson—oh, by no means, oh dear, no."
He raised his lantern and turned the light of it full on the passage, disclosing a spectacle which brought a flush of warm blood to Alban's cheeks and filled him with a certain sense of shame he could not defend. For there were three of his old friends, no others than Sarah and the Archbishop of Bloomsbury with the boy "Betty," the latter close in the custody of the police who dragged him headlong, regardless of the girl's shrieks and the ex-clergyman's protests upon their cruelty. For an instant Alban was tempted to flee the place, to deny his old friends and to surrender to a base impulse of his pride; but a better instinct saving him, he intervened boldly and immediately declared himself to the astonished company.
"These people are friends of mine," he said, to the complete bewilderment of the constables, "please to tell me why you are charging them?"
"Gawd Almighty—if it ain't Mr. Kennedy!"—this from the woman.
"Indeed," said the clergyman, with a humility foreign to him, "I am very glad to see you, Alban. Our friend 'Betty' here is accused of theft. I am convinced—I feel assured that the charge is misplaced and that you will be able to help us. Will you not tell these men that you know us and can answer for our honesty?"
The lad "Betty" said nothing at all. His eyes were very wide open, a heavy hand clutched his ragged collar, and the police stood about him as though in possession of a convicted criminal.
"A young lad, sir, that stole a gold match-box from a gentleman and has got it somewhere about him now. Stand up, you young devil—none of your blarney. Where's the box now and what have you done with it?"
"I picked it up and give it to Captain Forrest—so help me Gawd, it's true. Arst him if I didn't."
The sergeant laughed openly at the story.