"I'm your bloke, guv'nor. Know 'er? Rather. Up 'ere--I'll show ye. Lord love ye, she's an old friend o' mine. Come on.... I should say you'd be in the lime trade, guv'nor, wouldn't you? I smelt it pretty strong, an' I'll never forget the smell o' lime. Why, says you? Why, 'cos o' losin' my blessed sight with lime, when I was a innocent kid. Fell on a slakin'--bed, guv'nor, an' blinded me blessed self; so I won't forget the smell o' lime easy. Ain't you in the trade, now? Ain't I right?" He stopped midway on the stairs to repeat the question. "Ain't I right? Is it yer own business or a firm?" "Ah well, I do 'ave to do with lime a good bit," said the stranger, evasively. "But go on, or else let me come past." Blind George turned, and reaching the landing, thumped his stick on the door and pushed it open. "'Ere y'are," he sang out. "'Ere's a genelman come to see ye, as I found an' showed the way to. Lord love ye, 'e'd never 'a' found ye if it wasn't for me. But I'm a old pal, ain't I? A faithful old pal!" He swung his stick till he found a chair, and straightway sat in it, like an invited guest. "Lord love ye, yes," he continued, rolling his eye and putting his fiddle across his knees; "one o' the oldest pals she's got, or 'im either." The newcomer looked in a puzzled way from Blind George to the woman, and back again. "It's private business I come about," he said, shortly. "All right, guv'nor," shouted Blind George, heartily, "Out with it! We're all pals 'ere! Old pals!" "You ain't my old pal, anyhow," the limy man observed. "An' if the room's yours, we'll go an' talk somewheres else." "Get out, George, go along," said Mag, with some asperity, but more anxiety. "You clear out, go on." "O, all right, if you're goin' to be unsociable," said the fiddler, rising. "Damme, _I_ don't want to stay--not me. I was on'y doin' the friendly, that's all; bein' a old pal. But I'm off all right--I'm off. So long!" He hugged his fiddle once more, and clumped down into the street. He tapped with his stick till he struck the curb, and then crossed the muddy roadway; while Viney emerged again from the dark arch to meet him. "All right," said Blind George, whispering huskily. "It's business now, I think--business. You come on now. You'll 'ave to foller 'em if they come out together. If they don't--well, you must look arter the one as does." CHAPTER XVIII ON THE COP When the limy man left Blue Gate he went, first, to the Hole in the Wall, there to make to Captain Kemp some small report on the wharf by the Lea. This did not keep him long, and soon he was on his journey home to the wharf itself, by way of the crooked lanes and the Commercial Road.