A man began to cough in the front bedroom of the house before which he was standing. People upstairs were beginning to wake. A cock crowed dismally. He had better make up his mind, for day was beginning. Eastward the Stourton Road led to Coventry, westward to Wales. Whichever way he went his lack of money would compel him to walk. He wasn’t afraid of walking or, for that matter, of sleeping rough; and yet he felt that he was at sea and incapable in his present condition of making up his mind. His head and body ached with Garside’s blows, for the bruised muscles were beginning to stiffen. He was sleepy, as well as tired, and couldn’t remember one thing that seemed to be calling for recognition in the back of his mind. He went on walking aimlessly towards Halesby; the motion set his mind working once more and he remembered the thing that had baffled and escaped him. Tiger. . . . He couldn’t very well leave the dog on Mrs Moseley’s hands. At the same time he didn’t want to frighten the old woman by disturbing her before daylight. To do so would entail explanations, possibly arguments on the subject of his filial duties. It would mean another good-bye, and he wanted to get away quietly without anything of that kind. Still, he meant to have Tiger as much for his own comfort as for Mrs Moseley’s. He determined to see what could be done. The old woman’s house was the last on the right of a steep, cobble-paved street climbing at right angles to the Stourton Road. He turned up it, his hob-nails raising stinging echoes on the stones. He felt as if he must surely wake every one that slept there. Mrs Moseley’s house was as quiet as the rest. He surveyed it strategically. At the back of it lay a little yard that in happier days had been used as a fowl-run. To advertise the presence of these treasures within, her husband had prevailed upon the landlord to top the wall with fragments of broken bottles. This barrier now confronted Abner. Luckily he was tall enough to reach the top of the wall with his hands, and he soon discovered that time and weather had taken the nature out of Mr Moseley’s mortar so that it crumbled easily and allowed him to remove the glass from a foot of the coping. In two minutes he had done this, straddled the wall, and dropped down softly on the other side. Tiger, bad watchdog that he was, still slept. Abner came softly to the door of the washhouse and tried it. There was no fear that Mrs Moseley would leave a door unlocked at night even behind a glass-topped wall. The only other aperture in the scullery was a window that was too small for him to get through and set very high in the wall. With his pocket-knife thrust through a broken pane he lifted the hasp and opened it. Tiger gave a sharp bark. ‘Ss . . .’ Abner whispered. ‘Tiger. . . . Good dog. . . Come on then.’