Once more alone, Harry rang for Stiff, who, however, could only repeat what he had before said, and his querist was puzzled as to what should be the next steps taken. The problem was solved by the waterside man himself, who came, he said, to see if the gentleman was well enough to go now. "He turned ill in the cab, did he not?" said Clayton. "Yes, sir; would go in a cab, he would. I don't like 'em--ready to choke yer, they are; but he wouldn't come on a 'bus. 'Fore we'd gone far, he turns as white as his hankychy, and shuts his eyes curus like, and gets all nohow in what he was a saying; but he says, he does, `Take me back, and come agen.' So I brought him back, and now I've comed agen." "And now, what is your news?" said Harry. "The gentleman has placed it in my hands." The man looked curiously at him for a few minutes, and then rubbed the bridge of his nose with a rough hand. "But you see, sir, this is a matter o' offring rewards for some one as is missing, and I've got a mate in this here job. For, you know, as soon as ever there's a notice up o' that sort, my mate and I begins to look out, so as to try if we can't find what's missing, and get what's offered. Now, I ask your parding, sir, but I should like to know who you may be, and what you've got to do with it at all? S'pose I leads you to it, shall we get the ready?" "You may deal with me precisely as you did with the gentleman you saw before. You know for yourself that he is too ill to leave the house, and he has deputed me to act for him, as I told you." "True for you, sir--I did see it; and as you seem to be a gent as is all right, let's go." A cab was brought, and, not without a glance at his unsavoury companion, Harry followed him into the vehicle. "Hadn't yer better let me ride outside, sir?" said the man, looking at the stuffed and cushioned interior with an aspect of disgust. "No," said Harry; "I want to know what more you have to say respecting this affair." The man gave a tug at an imaginary forelock, and then waited apparently to be questioned, while Harry took in his outward appearance at a glance. He was rough and dirty enough to have passed for the veriest vagabond in existence, but all the same he did not seem as if he belonged to that portion of society that has been dubbed "the dangerous classes;" for there was a good open aspect to the brown face, and though the Bardolphian nose told tales of drams taken to keep out the cold river mists, on either side a frank grey eye looked you full in the face; while, greatest test of all, the fellow's palms were hard and horny, and ended by fingers that had been chipped, bent, bruised, and distorted by hard labour. "Well, sir," said the man, "I ain't got much to tell you; only that, seeing the reward up, my mate and me thought we might as well have it as any one else, so we set to and--" "You found him?" exclaimed Harry, eagerly.