Here he was at first inclined to make a stop, having put the questions more as common routine than with any defined intention; but just as the girl came opposite to a lamp-post, and was on the eve of outstripping him, he said, "Oh, by-the-bye, do you know any one thereabouts, or anywhere else, who mends rings?" "Yes." "Who is it?" "Abram." "What more?" "I don't know his other name; we just call him Abram, and sometimes Jew Abram." "Did you ever get anything mended by him?" "No; but I bought a ring from him once." "And what did you do with it?" "I have it on my finger," she replied. "Will you let me see it?" he continued. "Oh yes." And as they came forward to another lamp-post, he was shown the ring. He examined it carefully, taking from his waistcoat another, and comparing the two--"Won't do." "How long is it since you made this purchase?" "About ten days ago." "And what did you pay for it?" "Three and sixpence." By this time they had got opposite the square where the girl lived. She crossed, and he followed, in the meantime asking her name. "There is Abram's house," she said; "there's light in the window." And the officer, standing a little to see where she went, now began to examine the outside of Abram's premises. A chink in the shutters showed him a part of the person of some one inside, whom he conjectured to be Abram sitting at his work. He opened the door, and it was as he thought. An old man was sitting at a bench, with a pair of nippers in his hand, peering into some small object. "Can you mend that?" said the officer abruptly, and, without a word of prelocution, pressing into his hands a ring. "Anything," was the prompt reply. But no sooner had the ring come under the glance of his far-ben eye-- "Yes--ah! ye-es--well--no--no." And the peering eye came, as it were, forward out of its recess, and scanned the face of the officer, who, on the other hand, was busy watching every turn of the Jew's features. "No; I cannot mend that." "Why? You said you could mend anything." "Ye-es, anything; but not that." "No matter--no harm in asking," replied the officer, as he looked round the apartment, and fixed his eye on the back wall, where, in utter opposition to all convenience, let alone taste, and even to the exclusion of required space, there were battered two or three coarse engravings. "Good night!" "Goo-ood night!" "Now what, in the name of decoration, are these prints hung up on that wall for?" asked the officer of himself, without making any question of the import of the Jew's look, and his yes and no. He was now standing in the middle of the square, and, turning round, he saw the light put out. Another thought struck him, but whatever it was, it was the cause of a laugh that took hold of him, even in the grasp of his anxiety; yea, he laughed, for a detective, greatly more heartily than could be authorized by anything I have recorded.