Arriving in Windmill Street, no time was lost in preliminaries.
“Is it all right, Jimmy?” inquired the Marquis, and in reply a cadaverous individual dressed like a gamekeeper respectfully approached his lordship. This was the professional rat-catcher, who traversed the main drains half the day, and supplied the various sporting haunts with thousands of rats nightly.
If a dog was backed to kill one thousand rats in a specified time the supply never failed to be equal to the demand, despite the hundreds that were pitted nightly against ferrets, or produced at so much a dozen for young bloods to try their dogs on.
To see this rat-catcher plunge his hand into a sack full of huge and ferocious sewer rats and extracting them one by one by the tail count the requisite amount into the pit was a sight beyond description, as legislators, cabinet ministers, peers, and army men threw sovereigns at him in payment of the sport supplied.
Carrying a sack in his hand this individual respectfully replied: “All right, my lud, two hundred as varmint a lot as iver I clapped eyes on. Thanks, your lordship, good luck to yer,” and he pocketed his fee.
“But are they tied all right?” inquired Bobby, as the parcel was presented to him.
“Right, sir? Why, you’ve only to slip this string like, and there you are.”
“Yes, I know where I should be,” suggested Bobby; “but I mean now. I’ll be d—d if I’ll put them under my cloak for a thousand till you make a regular knot.”
“Well, there you are, sir,” replied the expert with a pitying smile, as he performed the requisite function.
“Now we’re all right, Bobby,” added the Marquis. “Come on, we must catch them at supper. I’ve got a knife, come on,” and directing the hansom to Foley Street, the conspirators proceeded on their mission.