"Just upon eleven. The lad was to be here by then, wasn't he?"
"Yes, by eleven. I'd like to know what he wants with me now."
Jones here took up his cap, buttoned his coat, quietly opened the door, and went out; I following him, of course. He threw a good-humored nod to the woman, who still stood behind the bar, and I did the same; but he never spoke until we were some yards from "Noah's ark."
"You may be thankful, sir," he then said in a low voice, "to have got out safely and unmolested. That's the worst haunt of some of the worst characters in London; and they're banded together so as to shut out every one as don't belong to them. There's been a Providence, sir, in it all," raising his cap, "depend upon it. Now we must see if we can stop this lad whom they are expecting. We'll talk the matter over afterward."
Just then a boy came up running at full speed.
"Halt!" cried Jones, laying his hand on the lad's shoulder. "What makes you so late?"
"What's the odds to you? Let me go," replied the boy, with a mixture of impudence and cunning in his face. "I'm not not bound for you."
"You're bound for 'Noah's Ark,' though."
"Are you Mr. Sullivan?"