Clement took the hint and bettered the line with a crownpiece, and hastening back to his inn he took seisin of a seat in the coffee room which commanded the main street. Here he wrote out a bill, and bribed a waiter to keep the place for him: and in it he sat patiently, scanning every person who passed. But so many passed that an hour had not elapsed before he held his task hopeless, though he continued to perform it. The constable had undertaken to go round the inns and to set a watch on a side street; and the bill might do something. But his fancy pictured half a dozen by-ways through the town, or the man might avoid the town, or he might go by another route. Altogether it began to seem a hopeless task, his fancied sagacity a silly conceit. But he had undertaken the task, and as he had told his father he could not close all holes. He could only set his snare across the largest and hope for the best. Presently he heard the crier ring his bell and cry his man. “Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh yes!” and the rest of it, ending with “God save the King!” And that cheered him for a while. That was something. But as hour after hour went by and coaches, carriages, and postchaises stopped and started before the door, and pedestrians passed, and still no Thomas appeared—though half a dozen times he ran out to take a nearer view of some traveller, or to inspect a slumberer in a hay-cart—he began to despair. There were so many chances against him. So many straws floated by, half seen in the current. But Clement was dogged. He persisted, though hope had almost abandoned him, and it was long after midnight before, sinking with fatigue, he left his post. Even so he was out again by six, but if there was anything of which he was now certain, it was that the villain had gone by in the night. Still he remained, his eyes roving ceaselessly over the passers-by, who were now few, now many, as the current ran fast or slow, as some coach high-laden drew up before the door with a noisy fanfaronade, or some heavy wagon toiled slowly by. It was in one of these slack intervals, when the street was tolerably empty, that his eyes fell on a man who was loitering on the other side of the way. The man had his hands in his pockets and a straw in his mouth, and he seemed to be a mere idler; but as his eyes met Clement’s he winked. Then, with an almost imperceptible gesture of the head, he lounged away in the direction of the inn yard. Clement doubted if anything was meant, but grasping at every chance he hurried out and found the man standing in the yard, his hands in his pockets, the straw in his mouth. He was staring at an object, which, to judge from his aspect, could have no possible interest for him—a pump. “Do you want me?” Clement asked. “Mebbe, mister. Do you see that stable?” “Well?” “D’you go in there and I’ll—mebbe I’ll join you.” But Clement was suspicious. “I am not going out of sight of the street,” he said.