"Vash the other tenant," cried Abram, as he saw the plight he had got into--"vash not me, so help me the God of my forefathers, even Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were just men, as I am a just man; it vash not me. Vash not the cup put in Benjamin's sack?" The officer laughed--at this time inside, for it behoved him now to be grave--at the recollection of the strange coincidence of the picture and the stolen plate. "Come," said Jones, "let us start;" and, clapping the Jew's old hat on the head of the little man, he took him under the arm to lead him out. "After depositing him," whispered the officer into Jones' ear, "get help; proceed to Blackfriars, where Ogilvy is on the watch, and lay hold of Clinch. Some others will start in search of Reid, who may have tracked Four-toes, and seize her. You comprehend?" "Perfectly. Come, Abram--unless you would like to walk at a safe distance?" "Surely I would," replied Abram; "and so would every man who vash as innocent as the child vash born yesterday, or this minute." When the prisoner had departed, the officer sat down on the Jew's stool to rest himself, previous to making a survey of the articles, with reference to an inventory he had in his pocket. In this attitude, he took up a pair of Abram's nippers to fasten a link in his watch chain, which threatened to give way, so that he might very well have represented the master of the establishment sitting at his work. This observation is here made, as explanatory of another circumstance which presently occurred in this altogether remarkable case. The door, which Jones had closed after him, was opened stealthily; an old woman, wrapped up in a duffle cloak, slipped quietly and timidly in, and going round the end of the bench, whispered into the ear of the lieutenant-- "You'll be Abram, nae doubt?" "Ay," replied he. "Ye're early at wark." "Ay." "Weel, the milk-woman--ye ken wha I mean?" "Oh yes; Four-toes." "Ha! ha! ay, just Four-toes, that's Mary Burt; ah! she _was_ a buxom lass in my kennin'. Weel, she has sent me to you, in a quiet way, ye ken, to tell ye that the p'lice have an e'e on you. That ill-lookin' scoondrel, the cleverest o' the 'tectives, as they ca' them--I never saw him mysel, but dootless you'll ken him--has been seen in the coort here, wi' twa o' his beagles, and you're to tak tent." "Yes, I know the ill-looking Christian dog. Vat ish your name?" "Chirsty Anderson." "Where do you live, Christian?" "In Wardrop's Coort, at the tap o' the lang stair. And the milk-maid--ha! ha!--says you're to shift the things to my room i' the dark'nin', whaur Geordie, my laddie, will hae a plank lifted, and you can stow them awa, ayont the ken o' the cleverest o' them." "And where ish the milk-woman?" "In my room, pitchers an' a'." "Well, tell her to keep there, as vash a prisoner, till I come to her place." "I will." "Isn't Geordie, my good woman, called Squint?"