Mr. Asherill remembered them, which was bad, seeing he had travelled an even worse road himself; but then it must be taken into account that a ticket-of-leave man who sincerely repents the error of his ways cannot afford exactly to be seen in company even with a very young pickpocket.
"Well, gentlemen, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Asherill, looking across the table at his visitors, and digging the point of a steel pen into his blotting-paper as he spoke.
"We have brought you one very good thing," said Mr. Kleinwort, speaking slowly, and painfully, English bad as the weather.
"Much obliged, I am sure. What is it?"
"Oh! one small thing; not big, but good. Must be done this very day; no fear of costs; lots of what you call peekings; no large bones but meaty;" and Mr. Kleinwort, who was all head and stomach, like a modern representation of Christmas, as popularly depicted, with a plum-pudding for paunch, laughed at his own wit.
Mr. Werner did not laugh; he scowled at his companion. Mr. Asherill did not laugh either. He looked from one to the other, and then asked, in a tone an undertaker might have envied—
"Who has gone now?"
"Archibald Mortomley," said Mr. Werner, glancing at him with dark eyes, from under darker brows.
"You don't mean that?" exclaimed Mr. Asherill, with a briskness suggestive of the old Adam.
"I mean that," answered Mr. Werner; and then ensued a pause.