"And what became of him?"
Mr. Joe then proceeded to take a long puff at his pipe, and winking at his initiated friend, proceeded to narrate how that the injured gang dealt in eggs.
"What has that to do with it?"
"Why you see eggs is not always eggs." Mr. Pouter then went on to state that one night a long deal chest left the premises of the coiners, marked outside, 'eggs,' for exportation. "They were duly shipped, a member of the firm being on board. The passage was rough, the box was on deck, and somehow or other, somebody tumbled it overboard."
"But what has this to do with the missing policeman?"
"The chest was six feet long, and——,"
Here Mr. Bethnal became uneasy.
"Vell," said the host, "the firm's broke up, and is past peaching up, only it shows you, my green 'un, what we can do."
I was shaken in my master's pocket by the violence of the dread which Mr. Joe's story had occasioned him.
Mr. Bethnal, with the philosophy which was habitual to him, puffed away at his pipe.