“’Ot work,” he ses, taking off his ’elmet and wiping his bald ’ead with a large red handkerchief.  “I’ve lost all my puff.”

“Been running?” I ses, very perlite.

“Arter a pickpocket,” he ses.  “He snatched a lady’s purse just as she was stepping aboard the French boat with her ’usband.  ’Twelve pounds in it in gold, two peppermint lozenges, and a postage stamp.’”

He shook his ’ead, and put his ’elmet on agin.

“Holding it in her little ’and as usual,” he ses.  “Asking for trouble, I call it.  I believe if a woman ’ad one hand off and only a finger and thumb left on the other, she’d carry ’er purse in it.”

He knew a’most as much about wimmen as I do.  When ’is fust wife died, she said ’er only wish was that she could take ’im with her, and she made ’im promise her faithful that ’e’d never marry agin.  His second wife, arter a long illness, passed away while he was playing hymns on the concertina to her, and ’er mother, arter looking at ’er very hard, went to the doctor and said she wanted an inquest.

He went on talking for a long time, but I was busy doing a bit of ’ead-work and didn’t pay much attention to ‘im.  I was thinking o’ twelve pounds, two lozenges, and a postage stamp laying in the mud at the bottom of my dock, and arter a time ’e said ’e see as ’ow I was waiting to get back to my night’s rest, and went off—­stamping.

I locked the wicket when he ’ad gorn away, and then I went to the edge of the dock and stood looking down at the spot where the purse ’ad been chucked in.  The tide was on the ebb, but there was still a foot or two of water atop of the mud.  I walked up and down, thinking.

I thought for a long time, and then I made up my mind.  If I got the purse and took it to the police-station, the police would share the money out between ’em, and tell me they ’ad given it back to the lady.  If I found it and put a notice in the newspaper—­which would cost money—­very likely a dozen or two ladies would come and see me and say it was theirs.  Then if I gave it to the best-looking one and the one it belonged to turned up, there’d be trouble.  My idea was to keep it—­for a time—­and then if the lady who lost it came to me and asked me for it I would give it to ’er.

Once I had made up my mind to do wot was right I felt quite ’appy, and arter a look up and down, I stepped round to the Bear’s Head and ’ad a couple o’ goes o’ rum to keep the cold out.  There was nobody in there but the landlord, and ’e started at once talking about the thief, and ’ow he ’ad run arter him in ’is shirt-sleeves.

“My opinion is,” he ses, “that ’e bolted on one of the wharves and ’id ‘imself.  He disappeared like magic.  Was that little gate o’ yours open?”

“I was on the wharf,” I ses, very cold.

“You might ha’ been on the wharf and yet not ’ave seen anybody come on,” he ses, nodding.

“Wot d’ye mean?” I ses, very sharp.  “Nothing,” he ses.  “Nothing.”