“Hey!” said the field-marshal, massaging his ear with a look of reproach and dislike. Bates turned, and as he saw Sam, there spread itself over his face the startled look of one who, wandering gayly along some primrose path, sees gaping before him a frightful chasm or a fearful serpent or some menacing lion in the undergrowth. In this crisis, Claude Bates did not hesitate. With a single backward spring--which, if he could have remembered it and reproduced it later on the dancing floor, would have made him the admired of all--he disappeared, leaving Sam staring blankly after him. A large fat hand, placed in no cordial spirit on his shoulder, awoke Sam from his reverie. The field-marshal was gazing at him with a loathing which he now made no attempt to conceal. “You ’op it,” said the field-marshal. “We don’t want none of your sort ’ere.” “But I was at school with him,” stammered Sam. The thing had been so sudden that even now he could not completely realise that what practically amounted to his own flesh and blood had thrown him down cold. “At school with ’im too, was you?” said the field-marshal. “The only school you was ever at was Borstal. You ’op it, and quick. That’s what you do, before I call a policeman.” Inside the night-club, Claude Bates, restoring his nervous system with a whisky and soda, was relating to his friend Tresidder the tale of his narrow escape. “Absolutely lurking on the steps!” said Bates. “Ghastly!” said Tresidder. CHAPTER FIVE PAINFUL AFFAIR AT A COFFEE-STALL London was very quiet. A stillness had fallen upon it, broken only by the rattle of an occasional cab and the footsteps of some home-seeking wayfarer. The lamplight shone on glistening streets, on pensive policemen, on smoothly prowling cats, and on a young man in a shocking suit of clothes whose faith in human nature was at zero. Sam had now no definite objective. He was merely walking aimlessly with the idea of killing time. He wandered on, and presently found that he had passed out of the haunts of fashion into a meaner neighbourhood. The buildings had become dingier, the aspect of the perambulating cats more sinister and blackguardly. He had in fact reached the district which, in spite of the efforts of its inhabitants to get it called Lower Belgravia, is still known as Pimlico. And it was near the beginning of Lupus Street that he was roused from his meditations by the sight of a coffee-stall.