“Certain sure,” Paulet was asseverating, “_you’ll_ pay for drinks, M. Moche ... yes, yes, your Honour, never say no!... But look’ee here, that chap yonder—I don’t so much as know his blessed name—well, there’d be something to be made out of him, eh?... There’s no flies on that bloke, you bet. Why in two twos and a couple of shakes, crack! he’d downed his gentleman, let me tell you that, sir. Two constables, sir, and we chucked ’em both in the gutter. Cost me a bit of good rope, it did—but there, I don’t care.” M. Moche, sipping an extraordinary mixture of brandy and absinthe, applauded Paulet’s narrative, and then turning to Fandor, asked: “So, young sir, things going well with you, eh?” The question roused Fandor from a deep fit of abstraction. The old fellow repeated his remark. “H’m, no!” Fandor confessed, “by no manner of means!... cleaned out!” “And you can write?” With the utmost seriousness the journalist declared he could—“and none so badly either,” he added, “I write quite a good hand.” For some seconds the old man sat lost in thought; then he brought out his proposal: “Now, what would you say if I asked you to come and work with me? I am a business agent, yes, a business agent—in _every_ kind of business, you must understand.... In one word, if you care to sleep to-night at my place, why, there’s a pile of papers in the garret, where you’d be comfortable enough ... say, does that suit your book, my lad?” For the moment Fandor hesitated. He asked himself who and what was this dreadful person, and for what shady work was he engaging him—on Paulet’s recommendation, Paulet a common “bully,” and that after he had just heard how he had been an active participator in an assault on officers of the law. But Paulet gave him a nudge: “Go on,” urged the young blackguard; “you’re cleaned out, ain’t you? so you risk nothing, and you’ll rake in the rhino scratching paper at the old put’s—he’s rolling in money, you ask any of the blokes here.” So it seemed old Moche, who frequented Korn’s tavern, knew all the crew that met there. Jérôme Fandor’s mind was made up. No matter what adventures might befall him if he agreed to “work” for M. Moche, he ought by no means to neglect the opportunity thus offered for renewing his observation of the machinations of this amiable confraternity. “M’sieur Moche,” he gave his answer, purposely exaggerating his vulgar trick of speech, “as you might say, sir, your offer does me proud—and for that there sleeping in your garret, I won’t say no; for all it’s May time, it’s none too cosy, it ain’t, dossing under the stars.” M. Moche, who wore an enormous great ring on his finger hammered noisily on the zinc-topped table. “Korn,” he commanded, “another go of the same all round; it’s my treat, I’ve just enlisted a new clerk.” CHAPTER III SHADY SCHEMES Elbows resting on the hand-rail of the bridge, a man stood gazing down pensively at the flowing water.