"Well, p'raps I am, D'Ossay," said Griffiths, who began to see how the land lay; "perhaps I am in some things; but it ain't only luck,--I'm as lucky as most of 'em; but it's the talent as does it--the talent; and there's none of us has got that like you, D'Ossay, my boy." "Well, luck or talent, or whatever it is," said Effingham, pulling the bell, "it helps me on.--Bring some brandy and hot water here.--I come in here to have a mouthful o' bread and cheese and a glass o' ale about two this afternoon, and Pollock was in here; Jack Pollock they call him,--the fellow that writes the plays, you know." Mr. Griffiths, over his first gulp of brandy-and-water, nodded his head in acquiescence. "Things is going on rather bad at the Garden," continued Mr. Effingham; "I don't know whether you've heard. Their pantomime's been a reg'lar failure this year, and Wuff's paper's beginning to fly again. I suppose old Lyons is in that swim, for Pollock says to me, 'Didn't I hear you askin' after Mr. Lyons?' he says. 'I did,' I says. 'I thought so,' he says; 'and I told him so when I saw him just now in Wuff's room at the Garden. And he says, "I've just come back from abroad, and I don't reckleckt Mr. Effingham's name," he says; "but if he's one of the right sort, he'll find me among the lemons on Sunday morning."' So I thanked Pollock, and winked my eye, and nodded my head, and made believe as though I knew all about it; but I don't." "You don't?" "Not a bit of it; I'm as far off as ever, save for knowing that the old man's in England." "You ain't fly to what's meant by 'among the lemons,' eh?" "Not a bit of it, I tell you. What are you grinning and chuckling away at there, Griffiths? That's one of your disgustin' ways,--crowin' over me because you know something which I don't." "Don't be riled, D'Ossay; don't be riled, old feller. It's so seldom that I get a chance of findin' anything that you don't know, young though you are, that I make the most of it, I confess." "Well, there, all right. Now do you know what he meant by 'among the lemons'?" "Of course I do." "And what does it mean?" "'Among the lemons' is magsman's patter for 'Houndsditch.' There's a reg'lar gatherin' of sheenies there every Sunday mornin', where they have a kind of fair, and sellin' all sorts of things,--clothes, and books, and pictures, and so on." "Well, but old Lyons is a cut above all that sort of thing." "I should think he was." "He wouldn't be found there." "Well, not sellin' anything; but he might be on the lookout for some magsmen as work for him, and who may have had the office to be about there. But if he's not there, I'd know where to lay hands on him, I'd take my oath." "Where's that?" "At the Net of Lemons, a public where sheenies of all kinds--diamond-merchants, fences, all sorts--meet on the Sunday." "Do you know the place?" "Know it! I should think so, and Mr. Eliason as keeps it; as respectable an old gent as walks." "They'd let you in?"