"Wot's the idea of getting up this cram at this time of the morning, Bill? It's near two o'clock. Won't it interfere with yer lodgers' precious digestion?" "Hinterfere with it? Wot, vith one of my lodgers? Rayther! No. Vy there's Kicking Billy as heats six blessed meals a day, and then he's all the time a lookin' for sangwiches and pigs trotters a-tween meals. Urt their digestion hindeed? Vy they 'av got stomax like them ere hanimals wot performs at Hastleys. You knows Slap-Up Peter. You used to be a stone swallower in the purfession," and the proprietor touched a man who was squatted on his haunches, smoking a dirty stump of clay pipe, with his foot. Slap-Up Peter drew the pipe out of his mouth, shook the ashes from it, dusted the venerable relic with a greasy red handkerchief, carefully placed it in his breeches pocket, and said: "Vy don't ye keep yer big feet to yerself? Wot hanimals do you mean? Do you mean cammomiles?" "Yes, them hanimals vith the 'umps on their hugly backs. You see, sir, Slap-Up Peter has had a good eddycation in his time, and he knows the names of the hanimals, 'cos he used to travel with the circus afore he went on the tramp to swallow stones and snakes." "Peter," said the detective, "you must 'ave quite an 'istry. Could you tell us somethink about your past life, my boy?" Slap-Up Peter had a melancholy face. The skin was tanned, the eyes large, black, and bulging, and the nose like a hawk's. His clothes were worn and greasy; his face was gaunt, and when he moved his body the bones seemed to creak and grate as if they had been joined together by metallic hinges. There was something mournful about the man--some queer story attached to him, I felt. [Sidenote: PETER AND JUDY.] "Tell ye me 'istry, is it? Vell, I don't mind if I do; but them as hears my story mout give me somethink to drink first, for I ham werry dry. I lost my woice speaking on the Histablished Church bill tother night in Parlymint, and I've been 'oarse hever since." "Well, take a drop, Peter," said Kicking Billy, a one-eyed and one-legged, and rascally looking fellow, who sat with his crutches between his knees, toasting his shin at the fire, and he handed a bottle to Slap-Up Peter, who took it without saying a word, and lifting it to his mouth, took a deep, deep draught without winking. "Look at that fellow that they call Kicking Billy--the one-legged fellow, I mean," said the detective to me. "He's a returned burglar, that fellow, and has served fourteen years. This place is full of thieves. They are nearly all thieves, and this is a thieves feast," he whispered in my ear.