They drank at the public-house, then Hewett led the way by back streets to the quarters of the club of which he had been for many years a member.  The locality was not cheerful, and the house itself stood in much need of repair.  As they entered, John requested his companion to sign his name in the visitors’ book; Mr. Snowdon did so with a flourish.  They ascended to the first floor and passed into a room where little could be seen but the gas-jets, and those dimly, owing to the fume of pipes.  The rattle of bones, the strumming of a banjo, and a voice raised at intervals in a kind of whoop announced that a nigger entertainment was in progress.  Recreation of this kind is not uncommon on Sunday evening at the workmen’s clubs; you will find it announced in the remarkable list of lectures, &c., printed in certain Sunday newspapers.  The company which was exerting itself in the present instance had at all events an appreciative audience; laughter and applause broke forth very frequently.

‘I’d forgot it was this kind o’ thing to-night,’ said Hewett, when he could discover no vacant seat.  ’Do you care about it?  No more don’t I; let’s go down into the readin’-room.’

Downstairs they established themselves at their ease.  John ordered two half-pints of ale—­the club supplied refreshment for the body as well as for the mind—­and presently he was more himself.

‘How’s your wife?’ inquired Joseph.  ‘Better, I hope?’

‘I wish I could say so,’ answered the other, shaking his head.  ’She hasn’t been up since Thursday.  She’s bad, poor woman! she’s bad.’

Joseph murmured his sympathy between two draughts of ale.

‘Seen young Kirkwood lately?’ Hewett asked, averting his eyes and assuming a tone of half-absent indifference.

’He’s gone away for his holiday; gone into Essex somewhere.  When was it he was speaking of you?  Why, one day last week, to be sure.’

‘Speakin’ about me, eh?’ said John, turning his glass round and round on the table.  And as the other remained silent, he added, ’You can tell him, if you like, that my wife’s been very bad for a long time.  Him an’ me don’t have nothing to say to each other—­but you can tell him that, if you like.’

‘So I will,’ replied Mr. Snowdon, nodding with a confidential air.

He had noticed from the beginning of his acquaintance with Hewett that the latter showed no disinclination to receive news of Kirkwood.  As Clem’s husband, Joseph was understood to be perfectly aware of the state of things between the Hewetts and their former friend, and in a recent conversation with Mrs. Hewett he had assured himself that she, at all events, would be glad if the estrangement could come to an end.  For reasons of his own, Joseph gave narrow attention to these signs.

The talk was turning to other matters, when a man who had just entered the room and stood looking about him with an uneasy expression caught sight of Hewett and approached him.  He was middle-aged, coarse of feature, clad in the creased black which a certain type of artisan wears on Sunday.