"No."
"Have you seen Tommy White since Jerry Morgan skipped?"
"See here! what the devil are you asking me all these questions for? Who are you, anyway, and what are you after?"
"I am Jack Barnes, detective, but I'm not after you, Joe Allen, alias Fred Martin, alias Jimmy Smith, alias Bowery Bill, alias the Plug."
This sally left the man stolidly unmoved, but it affected his attitude towards his questioner, nevertheless, as he sullenly answered:
"There's nothing you can get against me, so I don't scare even if you know me. If you don't want me, what do you want?"
"Look here, Joe," said Mr. Barnes, in friendly, confidential tones, "a bluff does not go with me, and you know it never did. Now why did you not acknowledge that you knew me when I first came in?"
"What's the use of courtin' trouble? I wasn't sure you'd remember my face. It's quite a time since we met."
"True. It is five years since that Bond Street affair, and you got three years for that, if I remember rightly."
"Well, I served my time, didn't I? So that's ended, ain't it?"