But even as he thus went up by the dim candlelight in the cold dawn, along that prison-like perspective of iron-barred windows and whitewash, with stone flags ringing to his feet, a vision of judgment arose within him. His teeth chattered at the memory of the police. Ethelbert, that product of no more than an elementary education, had received some general outline of the world from cinemas and from police reports, which that same education enabled him to read in the more widely circulated Sunday papers. He could not have told you that society was organized to the advantage of circles to which he did not belong, and to the disadvantage of his own; but he did know that this piece of green glass in its leaden-coloured setting of hideous lines would sell for a sum that would free him from servitude for ever. He also knew that to be found possessed of it would involve a far worse servitude; a servitude not to the Gentry but to the Force, and lasting, one way or another, the whole of his life. He knew that such servitude was torture. The people of his world knew all those things. Therefore did not the emerald represent to Ethelbert immediate wealth so much as a vision of confinement alone in a small mechanical cell; upon release, a life-long chain binding him as an informer and spy over whom further imprisonment should hang at will; a crushing and overwhelming tyranny; and perhaps at last a secret and abominable death. Of all these things had young Bert's mind been full from very early years, for all these things still haunt the distorted fancy of the poor. He saw himself presenting with trembling hand this Thing of Power, this Emerald, to his Emperor the Butler; he imagined a first awful and immediate trial at the hands of that Justiciar, and later an overwhelming sentence from the Master himself. He heard the key turning in the door of his room; he saw himself a gibbering prisoner therein; he heard the voices of the Inspector and his accompanying Sergeant; he felt the gyves upon his wrist. All this in the few seconds between the West Room of Paulings and the offices built out of the extreme east. So was Ethelbert's mind made up. For his good angel, failing to penetrate the first thick skin of stupidity and to suggest the simple delivery of the gem to his superiors, at any rate got through the second skin and suggested a second best. He had the brushing of the clothes. He would put it into the pocket of some one of the guests, and then he could breathe freely. Which guest should it be? No one was yet astir; he was free to choose. There was a minute or two before the clock would strike the half hour and bid him summon the earliest riser--after himself--the kitchen-maid. Her name, Kathleen Parkinson, I take the liberty of giving you, although she will appear no more in these pages.