“Who are you, sir, and what are you doing here?” asked Kester, sternly. “I am John Skeggs, Esquire, attorney-at-law, at your service. And who may you be, when you’re at home? But there—I know who you are well enough. You are Mr. Kester St. George, of Park Newton. I have seen you before. I saw you on the day of the murder trial. You were one of the witnesses, and white enough you looked. Anybody who had a good look at you in the box that day would never be likely to forget your face again.” Kester turned aside for a moment to hide the sudden nervous twitching of his lips. “I’m sorry the whiskey is done,” said Mr. Skeggs with a regretful look at the empty bottle. “I should like you and I to have had a drain together. I suppose you don’t do anything in this line?” From one pocket he produced an old clasp knife, and from the other a cake of leaf tobacco. Then he cut himself a plug and put it into his mouth. “When one friend fails me, then I fall back upon another,” he said. “When I can’t get whiskey I must have tobacco.” There was no better known character in Duxley than Mr. Skeggs. “Dirty Jack,” or “Drunken Jack,” were the sobriquets by which he was generally known, and neither of those terms was applied to him without good and sufficient reason. There could be no doubt as to the man’s shrewdness, ability, and knowledge of common law. He was a great favourite among the lower and the very lowest classes of Duxley society, who in their legal difficulties never thought of employing any other lawyer than Skeggs, the universal belief being that if anybody could pull them through, either by hook or crook, Dirty Jack was that man. And it is quite possible that Mr. Skeggs’s clients were not far wrong in their belief. “No good stopping here any longer,” said Skeggs, when he had put back his knife and tobacco into his pocket. “No, I suppose not,” said Kester. “I suppose you will see that everything is done right and proper by our poor dear departed?” “Yes, I suppose there is no one to look to but me. She was my foster-mother, and very kind to me when I was a lad.” “His foster-mother! Listen to that! His foster-mother! ha! ha!” sniggered Dirty Jack. Then laying a finger on one side his nose, and leering up at Kester with horrible familiarity, he added: “We know all about that little affair, Mr. St. George, and a very pretty romance it is.” “Look you here, Mr. Skeggs, or whatever your dirty name may be,” said Kester, sternly, “I’d advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head or it may be worse for you. I’ve thrashed bigger men than you in my time. Be careful, or I shall thrash you.” “I like your pluck, on my soul I do!” said Skeggs, heartily. “If you’re not genuine silver—and you know you ain’t—you’re a deuced good imitation of the real thing. Thoroughly well plated, that’s what you are. Any one would take you to be a born gentleman, they would really. Which way are you going back?”