Jérôme Fandor looked round.
“Bravo, mate!” he cried, “so you’ve downed your man, too?”
A thick, hoarse, common, ignoble voice replied:
“Downed him, have I ... yes, by gosh! and what’s more I’m busy fixing the bloke up workmanlike, I am!”
“Workmanlike, eh?”—and Fandor looked, and could scarcely believe his eyes. In the calmest way possible, but with surprising dexterity, the man he had taken for a working man had whipped a coil of rope from his pocket and tied up the victim of his prowess.
“And now for your man!” he cried, pointing to the wretch Fandor held captive under his knee, and who had now ceased to offer the slightest resistance.
“Must truss him up, too—but I think we’d best not do ’em in ...”
“Well and good!” thought Fandor, “why, by Gad! this beats cock-fighting; it’s just the finest scoop I’ve ever been in!”
The other went on: “It’s the street officers, look’ee—the swine! I just love it when I can spoil their little game. And it’s all to the good for our gals, eh?”
“For sure it is,” Fandor agreed, and getting to his feet, for his companion had by this time roped up his man, too, and rolled him into the gutter, not without planting a shrewd kick or two on his carcass