The tap-room opened upon the alley. It was thick with the clouds of tobacco smoke, and noisy with the conversation of the crowd. He knew that if he could once get beyond it to the kitchen he might be able to find the door that led to the stairway. And now an idea struck him. The walls were covered with rough cartoons and sheets of somewhat vulgar songs, which most of the crowd had learned by heart. He had seen the men often edging along, with their faces close to the wall, as if they had been bookworms searching in a case for a mislaid volume. He stepped inside the room, and followed the same tactics. No one paid the least attention to him, and with his back to those seated about the tables, he made his way to the kitchen. Here good luck also favored him, for a fat man in a greasy apron snored in the corner. He was the only occupant, and a door partly ajar disclosed to him the servants' stairway.
George stole softly up, and reached a little landing, which he knew at once was the one he had looked at from his own room. He could hear the sound of voices from within. One was loud and hearty, and the other he knew at once as Landlord Gerry's.
"He is out on some escapade with the young officers, I promise you," said the landlord, "or mayhap he has gone over to the fleet, though all below-stairs say that they did not see him go out. Why don't you wait until the morning, sir? He appears a popular young gentleman, and may possibly stay out late."
"No, he is a sleepy-head, my nephew," responded the other. "And he will return soon if summat has not befallen him."
"He is a handsome lad," put in the landlord.
The other laughed. "Well, that depends where you look for beauty," he responded. "I never reckoned him as such."
George saw it all now. It was the uncle from Connecticut, who had returned, and, to use the expression, "the jig was up."
But what meant the man on the roof?
Seating himself on the stairway, his courage almost left him. What was he to do? A hiding-place must be found before morning.
He thought at once of Mrs. Mack's. There lay his only hope. But there was now some movement in the kitchen. The fat man, who had been sleeping, was stirring a rasher of bacon over the fire. The talking had ceased in his room, and suddenly he remembered with a start of fright that the cipher and locket he had left under the pillow of the bed. It almost made him sick with fear. He moved from his hiding-place, and putting his eye to the key-hole, looked within.