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Sometimes the pair wandered off to see a cobber in another part of the lines, exchange experiences and rumours with him, partake of his rations and water, and wander homeward through miles of dusty saps, not forgetting on their way to replenish their water-bottles at the landing and to acquire there any provisions which might, or might not look as if they lacked an owner, or, at any rate, the supervision of a policeman's eye.
The two policemen were pounding him with their night-sticks as effectually as though they were rapping on a door-step; and the crowd, seeing this, fell on them from behind, led by Stuff McGovern with his whip, and rolled them in the snow and tried to tear off their coat-tails, which means money out of the policeman's own pocket for repairs, and hurts more than broken ribs, as the Police Benefit Society pays for them.
Gorgett's sleuth-hound, the man he sent to me this afternoon, for one; the policeman on the beat that he'd stopped for a chat in front of the house, for another; a maid in the hall behind us, the policeman's sweetheart she is, for another! Oh!" he cried, "the desecration!
Mortimer held him there, squirming for a full minute, while men gathered so close that the air became stifling. Presently a heavy hand was laid on Mortimer's shoulder and a gruff policeman's voice asked, "What's the matter here?" "Nothing much," Mortimer replied, releasing his hold and straightening up; "this blackguard wanted me to bet on some horse, and when I refused, insulted me; that's all."
Tobacco? why not rolls of honest tobacco! nothing so much soothes the labourer. A volume of plans for the benefit of London smoked out of each ascending pile in his brain. London is at night a moaning outcast round the policeman's' legs. What of an all-night-long, cosy, brightly lighted, odoriferous coffee-saloon for rich or poor, on the model of the hospitable Paduan?
The streets at dusk on a frosty evening; the shop windows arranged by artist hands for the beauty-loving eyes of women; the rows of lights like jewels strung on an invisible chain; the glitter of brass and enamel as the endless procession of motors flashes past; the smartly-gowned women; the keen-eyed, nervous men; the shrill note of the crossing policeman's whistle; every smoke-grimed wall and pillar taking on a mysterious shadowy beauty in the purple dusk, every unsightly blot obscured by the kindly night.
"Well, we haven't quite got the rights of it," was the policeman's guarded answer. "Then I tell you." His dark eyes turned to Stane. "You not know me?" "No," answered Stane. "I never saw you in my life before." "But I haf seen you. Oui! I steal your canoe when you sleep!" "Great Scott!" cried Stane. "You " "I run from zee poleece, an' I haf nodings but a gun.
The man went down the cross street to the next corner, from the shelter of which he watched the corner he had just left. He saw the policeman pass by, going straight on up the street. He paralleled the policeman's course, and from the next corner again watched him go by; then he returned the way he had come. He whistled once to the house across the street, and after a time whistled once again.
The place was a respectable lodging house, and the stranger was certainly a gentleman, though a queer one to look at. It was not the policeman's business to interfere on suspicion, except in the case of notoriously bad characters. So, though he did think it odd, he went on again.
That was the window of Burke's cell. When I grasped that fact I got out my gun and walked to the door of the restaurant. Just as I reached it a piece of paper shot out through the bars of Burke's cell and fell at the policeman's feet, and he stamped his boot down on it and looked all around again to see if any one had noticed him.
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