‘Well, I never!’ she cried, wrathfully, rushing upon Bob.  ’Now you just stop that, young man!  I thought it ‘ud be comin’ to this before long.  I saw you was goin’ that way.’

The mildness of her expressions was partly a personal characteristic, partly due to Mrs. Griffin’s very large experience of such scenes as this.  Indignant she might be, but the situation could not move her to any unwonted force of utterance.  Enough that Bob drew back as soon as he was bidden, and seemed from his silence to be half-ashamed of himself.

Pennyloaf let herself lie at full length on the floor, her hands clutched protectingly about her head; she sobbed in a quick, terrified way, and appeared powerless to stop, even when Mrs. Griffin tried to raise her.

‘What’s he been a-usin’ you like this for?’ the woman kept asking.  ‘There, there now!  He shan’t hit you no more, he shan’t!’

Whilst she spoke Bob turned away and went from the room.

From Merlin Place he struck off into Pentonville and walked towards King’s Cross at his utmost speed.  Not that he had any object in hastening, but a frenzy goaded him along, faster, faster, till the sweat poured from him.  From King’s Cross, northwards; out to Holloway, to Hornsey.  A light rain was ceaselessly falling; at one time he took off his hat and walked some distance bareheaded, because it was a pleasure to feel the rain trickle over him.  From Hornsey by a great circuit he made back for Islington.  Here he went into a public-house, to quench the thirst that had grown unbearable.  He had but a shilling in his pocket, and in bringing it out he was reminded of the necessity of getting more money.  He was to have met Jack Bartley to-night, long before this hour.

He took the direction for Smithfield, and soon reached the alley near Bartholomew’s Hospital where Bartley dwelt.  As he entered the street he saw a small crowd gathered about a public-house door; he hurried nearer, and found that the object of interest was a man in the clutch of two others.  The latter, he perceived at a glance, were police-officers in plain clothes; the man arrested was—­Jack Bartley himself.

Jack was beside himself with terror; he had only that moment been brought out of the bar, and was pleading shrilly in an agony of cowardice.

’It ain’t me as made ’em!  I never made one in my life!  I’ll tell you who it is—­I’ll tell you where to find him—­it’s Bob Hewett as lives in Merlin Place!  You’ve took the wrong man.  It ain’t me as made ’em!  I’ll tell you the whole truth, or may I never speak another word!  It’s Bob Hewett made ’em all—­he lives in Merlin Place, Clerkenwell.  I’ll tell you—­’