"Ah! Thash where you're wrong; she _ain't_ in--see?" Marr wagged his head, and leered the profoundest sagacity. "She _ain't_ in. What's more, 'ow d'you know she ever will come in, eh? 'Ow d'ye know that? Thash one for ye, ole f'ler! Whar'll ye bet me she ever gets as far as--but I say, I say; I say, y'know, you're all right, ain't you? Qui' sure you're orrigh'?" There was a new and a longer chorus of reassurance, which Dan at last ended with: "Go on; the _Juno_ ain't ever to come back; is that it?" Marr turned and stared fishily at him for some seconds. "Wha'rr you mean?" he demanded, at length, with a drivelling assumption of dignity. "Wha'rr you mean? N-never come back? Nishe remark make 'spectable shipowner! Whassor' firm you take us for, eh?" The blind fiddler stopped midway in a flourish and pursed his lips silently. Dan looked quickly at the fiddler, and as quickly back at the drunken man. Marr's attitude and the turn of his head being favourable, the woman quietly detached his watch. "Whassor' firm you take us for?" he repeated. "D'ye think 'cause we're--'cause I come here--'cause I come 'ere an'----" he stopped foolishly, and tailed off into nothing, smiling uneasily at one and another. The woman held up the watch behind him--a silver hunter, engraved with Marr's chief initial--a noticeably large letter M. Dan saw it, shook his head and frowned, pointed and tapped his own breast pocket, all in a moment. And presently the woman slipped the watch back into the pocket it came from. "'Ere, 'ave another drink," said Dan hospitably. "'Ave another all round for the last, 'fore the fiddler goes. 'Ere y'are, George, reach out." "Eh?" ejaculated the fiddler. "Eh? I ain't goin'! Didn't the genelman ask me to come along? Come, I'll give y' a toon. I'll give y' a chant as 'll make yer 'air curl!" "Take your drink, George," Dan insisted, "we don't want our 'air curled." The fiddler groped for and took the drink, swallowed it, and twangled the fiddle-strings. "Will y'ave _Black Jack_?" he asked. "No," Dan answered with a rising voice. "We won't 'ave Black Jack, an' what's more we won't 'ave Blind George, see? You cut your lucky, soon as ye like!" "Awright, awright, cap'en," the fiddler remonstrated, rising reluctantly. "You're 'ard on a pore blind bloke, damme. Ain't I to get nothin' out o' this 'ere? I ask ye fair, didn't the genelman tell me to come along?" Marr, ducking and lolling over the table, here looked up and said, "Whassup? Fiddler won' go? Gi'm twopence an' kick'm downstairs. 'Ere y'are!" and he pulled out some small change between his fingers, and spilt it on the table. Dan and the broken-nosed man gathered it up and thrust it into the blind man's hand. "This ain't the straight game," he protested, in a hoarse whisper, as they pushed him through the doorway. "I want my reg'lars out o' that lot. D'ye 'ear? I want my reg'lars!"