His sister watched him for nearly half an hour, and then went home. In two hours more she came back with her husband. Bob was still there, walking to and fro. "'Ullo, Bob," said his brother-in-law; "come along 'ome an' get to bed, there's a good chap. You'll be awright in the mornin'." "She ain't turned up," Bob complained, "or else I've missed 'er. This is the reg'lar place--where I alwis used to meet 'er. But she'll come to-morrer. She used to leave me in the lurch sometimes, bein' nach'rally larky. But very good-'arted, mindjer; very good-'arted." She did not come the next evening, nor the next, nor the evening after, nor the one after that. But Bob Jennings, howbeit depressed and anxious, was always confident. "Somethink's prevented 'er to-night," he would say, "but she'll come to-morrer.... I'll buy a blue tie to-morrer--she used to like me in a blue tie. I won't miss 'er to-morrer. I'll come a little earlier." So it went. The black coat grew ragged in the service, and hobbledehoys, finding him safe sport, smashed the tall hat over his eyes time after time. He wept over the hat, and straightened it as best he might. Was she coming? Night after night, and night and night. But to-morrow.... A CONVERSION. There are some poor criminals that never have a chance: circumstances are against them from the first, as they explain, with tears, to sympathetic mission-readers. Circumstances had always been against Scuddy Lond, the gun. The word gun, it may be explained, is a friendly synonym for thief. His first name was properly James, but that had been long forgotten. "Scuddy" meant nothing in particular, was derived from nothing, and was not, apparently, the invention of any distinct person. Still, it was commonly his only name, and most of his acquaintances had also nicknames of similarly vague origin. Scuddy was a man of fine feelings, capable of a most creditable hour of rapturous misery after hearing, perhaps at a sing-song, "Put Me in my Little Bed," or any other ditty that was rank enough in sentiment: wherefore the mission-readers never really despaired of him. He was a small, shabby man of twenty-six, but looking younger; with a runaway chin, a sharp yellow face, and tremulously sly eyes; with but faint traces of hair on his face, he had a great deal of it, straight and ragged and dirty, on his head.