"Compel them!--but surely they come down whenever they've a suspicion?" "You needn't a' told me he was green," said Mr. Joe to his elder acquaintance, as he glanced at the youth with an air of pity. "In the first place, we takes care to keep the vork-shop almost impregnable; so that, if they attempts a surprise, we has lots o' time to get the things out o' the way. In the next, if it comes to the scratch--which is a matter of almost life and death to us--we stands no nonsense." Mr. Joe pointed to an iron crowbar, which stood in the chimney-corner. "I ses nothing to criminate friends, you know," he added significantly to Mr. Bethnal, "but _you_ remember wot Sergeant Higsley got?" Mr. Bethnal nodded assent, and Mr. Joe volunteered for the benefit and instruction of Edward an account of the demise and funeral of the late Mr. Sergeant Higsley. That official having been promoted, was ambitious of being designated, in the newspapers, "active and intelligent," and gave information against a gang of coiners; "Wot wos the consequence?" continued the narrator. "Somehow or another, that p'leseman was never more heered on. One fine night he went on his beat; he didn't show at the next muster; and it was s'posed he'd bolted. Every inquiry was made, and the 'mysterious disappearance of a p'leseman,' got into the noospapers. Howsomnever, _he_ never got any wheres." "And what became of him?" Mr. Joe then proceeded to take a long puff at his pipe, and winking at his initiated friend, proceeded to narrate how that the injured gang dealt in eggs. "What has that to do with it?" "Why you see eggs is not always eggs." Mr. Pouter then went on to state that one night a long deal chest left the premises of the coiners, marked outside, 'eggs,' for exportation. "They were duly shipped, a member of the firm being on board. The passage was rough, the box was on deck, and somehow or other, somebody tumbled it overboard." "But what has this to do with the missing policeman?" "The chest was six feet long, and----," Here Mr. Bethnal became uneasy. "Vell," said the host, "the firm's broke up, and is past peaching up, only it shows you, my green 'un, what we _can_ do." I was shaken in my master's pocket by the violence of the dread which Mr. Joe's story had occasioned him. Mr. Bethnal, with the philosophy which was habitual to him, puffed away at his pipe.