Instantly the voice within was silent, and Stumpy was to all appearance
sleeping soundly and heavily, as if tired nature in him had fairly
reached its last strait.
The distant footsteps came nearer; and still he slept on, snoring gently
and regularly. The policeman advanced leisurely, turning his lantern
first on this doorway, then on that window; trying now a shutter-bar,
then a lock. At last he stood opposite the doorstep where Stumpy lay.
It was a critical moment. He turned his lamp full on the boy's sleeping
face, he took hold of his arm and gently shook him, he tried the bolt of
the door against which he leaned. The sleeper only grunted drowsily and
settled down to still heavier slumber, and the policeman, evidently
satisfied, walked on.
"Is he gone?" asked the voice within, the moment the retreating
footsteps showed this.
"Yas, but he'll be back," whispered the boy.
And so he was. Three times he paced the street, and every time found
the boy in the same position, and wrapped in the same profound slumber.
Then at last he strode slowly onward to the end of his beat, and his
footsteps died gradually away.
"Now?" inquired the voice.
"Yas," replied Stumpy.
Whereat the door half-opened, and Stumpy entered.
It was a dirty, half-ruinous house, in which the rats had grown tame and
the spiders fat. The stairs creaked dismally as Stumpy followed his
entertainer up them, while the odours rising from every nook and cranny
in the place were almost suffocating.
The man led the way into a small room, foul and pestilential in its
closeness. In it lay on the floor no less than nine or ten sleeping
figures, mostly juveniles, huddled together, irrespective of decency,
health, or comfort. Stumpy surveyed the scene composedly.
"Got lodgers, then," he observed.
"Yes, two on 'em--on'y penny ones, though."
Just then a sound of moaning came from one corner of the room, which
arrested Stumpy's attention.
"Who's that?" he asked.
"Old Sal; she's bad, and I reckon she won't last much longer the way
she's a-going on. I shall pack her off to-day."
Stumpy whistled softly; but it was evident, by the frequent glances he
stole every now and then towards the corner where the sufferer lay, that
he possessed a certain amount of interest in the woman described as "Old
Sal."
The man who appeared to be the proprietor of this one well-filled
lodging-room was middle-aged, and had a hare-lip. He had an expression
half careworn, and half villainous, of which he gave Stumpy the full
benefit as he inquired.
"What 'ave yer got?"
"Got, pal?" replied Stumpy; "a ticker."
"Hand it up," said the man, hurriedly.
Stumpy produced me, and the man, taking me to the candle, examined me
greedily and minutely.