The services of a bill-sticker not being immediately procurable, a large tin of paste had been mixed while the bills were being printed. Begging the loan of a pasting brush, and begging also the loan of the "devil" to carry the paste tin, Dick, now more than ever a Jack of all trades, issued forth to stick the bills himself, leaving behind him the copy of the poster offering a reward for the discovery of Abel Death. He was pasting the first of the bills on a dead wall when he saw the figure of the old man in list slippers and skull cap standing by his side. "Hallo!" he said, peering down at the twitching face, with its expression of ghastly mirth. "Hallo!" said the old man, peering up at the flushed, handsome face of the bill-sticker. CHAPTER XLV. CROSS PURPOSES. Dick recognised him instantly, and scented danger. The man who peered up at him, with all the leering muscles of his face at work, was the man of whom he had bought the rope and grapnel. With assumed carelessness he said, "You'll know me when you see me again, old fellow." "Shouldn't wonder," said the old man. "My name's Higgins. What may your'n be?" Dick had not quite finished sticking the first bill. Whether from not being used to the business, or from inward perturbation, he was making rather a bungle of it. Under any circumstances, however, he would have been ready to admit that there is an art even in bill-sticking. "Let's make a guess, shall us?" said Mr. Higgins, with a cunning look, plunging into doggerel. "Riddle-me-riddle-meriddle-me-ree, first comes a, then b c d; riddle-me-riddle-me-riddle-me-rye, the letter we stop at next is i; riddle-me-riddle-me-riddle-me-rick, a c and a k will make it spell Dick." Mr. Higgins was so enamoured of this impromptu that he chuckled to himself, "Will make it spell Dick, will make it spell Dick." "Look here," said Dick, an uncomfortable feeling spreading over him, "what do you want?" "Quartern o' rum," replied Mr. Higgins, suddenly descending from the heights of Parnassus. "All right," said Dick, "at the first pub we come to." "Pub over there," said Mr. Higgins, twitching his head at the opposite side of the road. "Throat dry as a bit o' rusty iron." The bill was stuck, and people were stopping to read it. Even in these days of huge and startling advertisements on the walls--not the least conspicuous of which are the lank figures of blue or scarlet females in outrageous costumes and impossible postures, the product of a mischievous school of impressionists--even amidst these monstrous parodies of art a double-demy poster offering a reward of £500 for the discovery of a Murderer is certain to command an audience. So it was natural enough that a little crowd should gather, and that eager comments and opinions should be exchanged.