It was a dingy nest, fitted up with the usual furniture of such a place.  The one dim candle threw a ghostly light on chairs, clocks, compasses, trinkets, saucepans, watches, piles of china, and suits of left-off clothes arrayed like rows of suicides along the wall.  A general air of decay hung over the den.  Immediately opposite me, as I entered, a stuffed parrot, dropping slowly into dust, glared at me with one malevolent eye of glass, while a hideous Chinese idol, behind the counter, poked out his tongue in a very frenzy of malignity.  But my eye wandered past these, and was fixed in a moment upon something that glittered upon the counter.  That something was my own watch.

Following my gaze, the man gave me a quick, suspicious glance, hastily caught up the watch, and was bestowing it on one of his shelves, when I said—­

“Where did you get that?”

“Quite innocently, sir, I swear.  I bought it of a gentleman who came in just now, and would not pawn it.  I thought it was his, so that if you belong to the Force, I hope—­”

“Gently, my friend,” said I; “I am not in the police, so you need not be in such a fright.  Nevertheless, that watch is mine; I can tell you the number, if you don’t believe it.”

He pushed the watch across to me and said, still greatly frightened—­

“I am sure you may see it, sir, with all my heart.  I wouldn’t for worlds—­”

“What did you give for it?”

He hesitated a moment, and then, as greed overmastered fear, replied—­

“Fifteen pounds, sir; and the man would not take a penny less.  Fifteen good pounds!  I swear it, as I am alive!”

Although I saw that the man lied, I drew out three five-pound notes, laid them on the table, and took my watch.  This done, I said—­

“Now I want you to sell me a suit of clothes, and aid me to disguise myself.  Otherwise—­”

“Don’t talk, sir, about ‘otherwise.’  I’m sure I shall only be too glad to rig you out to catch the thief.  You can take your pick of the suits here; they are mostly seamen’s, to be sure; but you’ll find others as well.  While as for disguises, I flatter myself that for getting up a face—­”

Here he stopped suddenly.

“How long has he been gone?”

“About half an hour, sir, before you came.  But no doubt you know where he’d be likely to go; and I won’t be more than twenty minutes setting you completely to rights.”

In less than half an hour afterwards, I stepped out into the street so completely disguised that none of my friends—­that is, if I had possessed a friend in the world—­would have recognised me.  I had chosen a sailor’s suit, that being the character I knew myself best able to sustain.  My pale face had turned to a bronze red, while over its smoothly-shaven surface now grew the roughest of untrimmed beards.  Snow was falling still, so that Colliver’s footprints were entirely obliterated.  But I wanted them no longer.  He would be at Paddington, I knew; and accordingly I turned my feet in that direction, and walked rapidly westward.