"If you'd really like a talk with him," said Mr Rogers, blinking, "maybe you'd best let the child here take you to his house. . . . Eh, missy? Cap'n Hunken tells me as how he'd like to pay a call 'pon Mr Philp, up in Union Place." "Now?" asked Fancy. "The sooner the better," answered 'Bias, crushing 'The Troy Herald' between his hands. Fancy's hands, disencumbered of the tea-tray, began to twitch violently. "Very well, master," was all she said, however; and with that she left the room to fetch her hat and small cloak. "I'd advise you to tackle Philp gently," was Mr Rogers's warning as soon as the pair were alone. "Not that I've any likin' for the man: but the point is, you've no evidence. He'll tell you--and, likely enough, with truth--as he never act'ally wrote what's printed." "You leave him to me," answered 'Bias grimly, gulping his tea and preparing to sally forth. "An' you might remember to leave the child outside. If a lady's name is to be handled in the discussion, you understand. . . . Besides which, witnesses are apt to be awk'ard. Two's the safe number when there's a delicate point to be cleared up." Fancy reappeared and announced herself ready. 'Bias caught up his hat. . . . Left to himself, Mr Rogers lay back in his chair and chuckled. He did not care two straws for Mr Philp, or for what might happen to him. His mind was off on quite another train of thought. "I wonder what the woman's game is? 'A hundred pound lyin' idle'--and Hocken around with the same tale this forenoon. . . . Ten per cent, and at a moderate risk. . . . She's shrewd, too, by all accounts. . . . Damme, if this isn't a queer cross-runnin' world! A woman like that, if I'd had the luck to meet her a three-four year ago--before _this_ happened!" . . . He eyed his palsied hand as it reached out, shaking, for the tea-cup. "When we get to the door," said 'Bias heavily, as he and Fancy turned out of the street into the narrow entry of Union Place, "you're to step back and run away home." "No fear," she assured him. "I'm doin' you a favour, an' don't you forget it." "But you can't come inside with me." "_That's_ all right. Nobody said as I wanted to, in my hearin'. I can see all I want to see. There's a flight o' steps runnin' up close outside the window." She pointed it out and quite candidly indicated the point at which she proposed to perch herself. "And there's another window at the back," she added: "so's you can see all that's happenin' inside." "Better fit you ran away home," he repeated. "You can't _make_ me," retorted Fancy. "Unless, o' course, you choose to use force, here in broad daylight. As a friend of mine said, only the other day," she went on, snatching at a purple patch from 'Pickerley,' "the man as would lift his hand against a woman deserves whatever can be said of him. Public opinion will condemn him in this life, and, in the next, worms are his portion. So there!"