"Really, I hardly know. I haven't thought much upon the subject, but I think we ought, if we do possess any conscience ourselves, to give Jack a chance to light his pipe."
They soon sauntered back to the Tremaine Buildings, where Jack sat down at the piano and played to them. While Jack played on, Geoffrey seemed interested in police-court items, but Rankin preferred listening to Beethoven and Mozart to "talking shop." After they had sung some sea-songs together and chatted over a glass of "something short," Rankin said good-night and mounted to No. 173 on the invisible stairs with as much activity as if daylight were assisting him.
Having lit his lamp, he soliloquized, as he attended to some faults in his complexion before a small looking-glass, "So I have got another client, I perceive. That dinner to-day was a fee—nothing else in the world. I don't know now that I altogether like my new client. He evidently didn't get what he wanted. Perhaps Jack was in the way. Now, I wonder what the beggar does want. Chances are I'll have another dinner soon. Happy thought! make him keep on dining me ad infinitum! Ornamental dinner! Pleasant change!"
Maurice undressed and walked up and down the room. "Perhaps I am all wrong, though," said he. "I can't help liking him in many ways, and he's chock-full of interesting information. How odd that he didn't know anything about a fellow having no conscience. Hadn't thought over that idea. Very likely! Gad! I could imagine him just such a one, now that I have got suspicious. He has a bad eye when he doesn't look after it. It doesn't always smile along with his mouth. I may be wrong, but I believe there's something there that's not the clean wheat," and Maurice ascended to the woolsack and disappeared for the night.
CHAPTER IV.
How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom? As Professor Owen takes a fragment of bone and builds a forgotten monster out of it, so the novelist puts this and that together: from the foot-prints finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; ... traces this slimy reptile through the mud; ... prods down this butterfly with a pin. —Thackeray (The Newcomes).
Hampstead did not get to sleep, after Rankin had retired, as early as he expected. Jack Cresswell followed him into his bedroom and sat down, lit another pipe, and then walked about, and seemed preoccupied, as he had all the evening. Geoffrey did not speak to him at first, as this was an unusual proceeding between the two, but, having got into bed and made himself comfortable by bullying the pillows into the proper shape and position, addressed his friend:
"Now, old man, unburden your mind. I know you want to tell me something, but do not be surprised if you find me asleep before you get your second wind. If you care for me, cut it short."