"Fence? Wot fence? Hi 'ad an accommodatin' friend in the business, who asked no impertinent questions and paid me 'alf price for my contributions—w'ich was bloomin' low figures, considering Hi never accepted hanything cheap. If there's one class Hi 'ate, positively 'ate, young man, it's them bloomin' shoddy gaffers wot sport a genteel reputation on plated spoons and paste."
"You always discriminated against such people?"
"Halways! Ho, it used to do my 'eart good," continued Dobbs, chuckling at the reminiscence, "w'en they wrote up one of my nocturnal visits (Hi halways make my collections in the quiet hours of the hevenin') as 'ow the leavin' of the plated ware and the abandonin' of a temptin' case of hartificial diamonds shows the 'and of the solitary cracksman. There's appreciation, Hi used to say! There's fame! You 'it it 'appily, young man. Hi always discriminated."
"Martin Thimblethorpe, then, was the solitary cracksman, and your real name is Dobbs?"
"Bill Dobbs. Wot's your line, chummy? Fashionable embezzlement? Hi admire that line. It's genteel and the perquisites is liberal accordingly."
Floyd was getting interested in spite of himself. These first-hand experiences of a professional burglar were life, and in spite of the fellow's utter villainy and vulgarity (he could almost see his cunning leer through the walls) they had a spice of romance that held him. But their colloquy was interrupted just here by a sound of footsteps and the approach of a light, which set the whole ward raving again.
"Shut up your screeching," came a voice of command, at which the mutinous crew subsided, and Robert heard apologetic remarks.
"It's Gradger."
"It isn't Longlegs."
"We thought it was Longlegs."