His companion retorted angrily, and for five minutes they stood in embittered colloquy.  It ended in Bob’s turning away and going out into the street.  Clem followed, and they walked westwards in silence.  Beaching City Road, and crossing to the corner where lowers St. Luke’s Hospital—­grim abode of the insane, here in the midst of London’s squalor and uproar—­they halted to take leave.  The last words they exchanged, after making an appointment, were of brutal violence.

This was two days after Clara Hewett’s arrival in London, and the same fog still hung about the streets, allowing little to be seen save the blurred glimmer of gas.  Bob sauntered through it, his hands in his pockets, observant of nothing; now and then a word escaped his lips, generally an oath.  Out of Old Street he turned into Whitecross Street, whence by black and all but deserted ways—­ Barbican and Long Lane—­he emerged into West Smithfield.  An alley in the shadow of Bartholomew’s Hospital brought him to a certain house:  just as he was about to knock at the door it opened, and Jack Bartley appeared on the threshold.  They exchanged a ‘Hello!’ of surprise, and after a whispered word or two en the pavement, went in.  They mounted the stairs to a bedroom which Jack occupied.  When the door was closed: 

’Bill’s got copped! ’whispered Bartley.

‘Copped?  Any of it on him?’

‘Only the half-crown as he was pitchin’, thank God!  They let him go again after he’d been to the station.  It was a conductor, I’d never try them blokes myself; they’re too downy.’

’Let’s have a look at ’em,’ said Bob, after musing.  ’I thought myself as they wasn’t quite the reg’lar.’

As he spoke he softly turned the key in the door.  Jack then put his arm up the chimney and brought down a small tin box, soot-blackened; he opened it, and showed about a dozen pieces of money—­in appearance half-crowns and florins.  One of the commonest of offences against the law in London, this to which our young friends were not unsuccessfully directing their attention; one of the easiest to commit, moreover, for a man with Bob’s craft at his finger-ends.  A mere question of a mould and a pewter-pot, if one be content with the simpler branches of the industry.  ‘The snyde’ or ‘the queer’ is the technical name by which such products are known.  Distribution is, of course, the main difficulty; it necessitates mutual trust between various confederates.  Bob Hewett still kept to his daily work, but gradually he was being drawn into alliance with an increasing number of men who scorned the yoke of a recognised occupation.  His face, his clothing, his speech, all told whither he was tending, had one but the experience necessary for the noting of such points.  Bob did not find his life particularly pleasant; he was in perpetual fear; many a time he said to himself that he would turn back.  Impossible to do so; for a thousand reasons impossible; yet he still believed that the choice lay with him.