“Drive me to Victoria,” he said. Half-way down Victoria Street he thrust his head from the window. “Take me down to Kennington,” he said, and gave an address. He changed his mind again and descended at Kennington Gate. From thence he took a tram that deposited him at the end of East Lane, and from here to his destination was a short walk. Whitey sought one named Coals. Possibly the man’s name had in a dim and rusty past been Cole; as likely it had been derived from the profession he had long ceased to follow, namely that of a coal-heaver. Coals had served Whitey and Lambaire before and would serve them again, unless one of two catastrophes had overtaken him. For if he were neither dead nor in prison, he would be in a certain public-house, the informal club from which his successive wives gathered him at 12.30 a.m. on five days of the week, and at 12 midnight and 11 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Your small criminal is a creature of habit--a blessed circumstance for the police of our land. Whitey was fortunate, for he had no difficulty in finding the man. He was standing in his accustomed corner of the public bar, remarkably sober, and the boy who was sent in to summon him was obeyed without delay. Whitey was waiting at some distance from the public-house, and Coals came to him apprehensively, for Whitey was ominously respectable. “Thought you was a split, sir,” said Coals, when his visitor had made himself known, “though there’s nothing against me as far as I know.” He was a tall broad-shouldered man with a big shapeless head and a big shapeless face. He was, for a man of his class and antecedents, extremely talkative. “How are things going with you, sir?” he rattled on in a dead monotonous tone, without pause or emphasis. “Been pretty bad round this way. No work, it’s cruel hard the work’s scarce. Never seen so much poverty in me life; blest if I know what will happen to this country unless something’s done.” The scarcity of work was a favourite topic with Coals; it was a pet belief of his that he was the victim of an economic condition which laid him on the shelf to rust and accumulate dust. If you asked Coals how it was with him he would reply without hesitation: “Out of work,” and there would be a hint of gloom and resentment in his tone which would convince you that here was a man who, but for the perversity of the times, might be an active soldier in the army of commerce. “Some say it’s the Government,” droned Coals, “some say it’s Germany, but something ought to be done about it, that’s what I say ... tramping about from early morn to jewy eve, as the good Book sez....” Whitey cut him short. They had been walking all this time in the direction of the Old Kent Road. The street was empty, for it was close on half-past twelve, and the reluctant clients of the public-houses were beginning to form in groups about the closing doors. “Coals,” said Whitey, “I’ve got a job for you.” Coals shot a suspicious glance at him.