"Not for myself, nor from vanity, am I so. I have nothing to boast of in my parents, for I never saw their faces. I have lifted myself out of the evil they might have brought upon me. These things lie deep, sir, deeper than most people consider. But that is not to the point. This is what I have to say with respect to Mary Parkinson. I have a poultry farm in Finchley, and I attend to my business. I am up early and late. It happened last night that I had much to look after, and my affairs kept me up till the small hours of this morning. Within a hundred yards of my farm is a public-house, the Three Tuns. At four o'clock this morning I walked from my office into the fresh air, before retiring to rest. I do this often; it freshens me up. When I was within a few yards of the Three Tuns, my attention was attracted to a cab which had just driven up to the door. It was an unusual hour for such a thing to occur. A man got out of the cab, and knocked at the door, and after some delay it was opened. Exchanging some words with the person who answered his summons, he returned to the cab, and assisted a woman to alight. I did not catch sight of her face, but I saw the man's; it was strange to me. The woman appeared to be in great agitation, and it seemed to me that she had been crying. Presently they entered the public-house, the door of which was closed upon them. I got into conversation with the driver of the cab, and learned that he had had a long drive from the east end of London, quite close to this spot. He was to drive the gentleman back to London, he said; and soon the gentleman came out, entered the cab, and was driven away. I don't know why this simple adventure should have made an impression upon me, but it did. However, I had other things to think of, and I went to bed. I was up early, and in London here, to see to the new shop I have opened. I was due in Finchley again this afternoon--I am a busy man, you see, sir--and it happened that when I arrived there I saw another cab stop at the Three Tuns. But though it was another cab, it was the same man who got out of it, and I saw his face very clearly. It was not the same woman, though, that jumped out, and I knew her well. It was a poor, foolish girl, almost a child in years, but a woman in sin, who goes by the name of Blooming Bess. Both the man and the girl went into the Three Tuns. My curiosity was aroused; my suspicions also. I did not like the face of the man; it was cold, heartless, cunning. He had cast looks about him in which I seemed to discern evil; he came from a quarter, or at least his companion did, with which I was intimately acquainted. We don't live in the world without learning, and I have learned something of the ways of scoundrels. If chance had put it into my power to unmask one--and I had a strange idea that it might be really so--I resolved not to throw it away. I hung about the place for some time, and at length bribed a