He did not leave till three in the morning, and after a promise to meet the same little party again next evening—­to dance and drink and drive away dull care.

CHAPTER XLVII.

ON a certain evening some days later, the two men whose faces were definitions sat on a bench outside that little public in the suburbs—­one at the end of a clay-pipe, the other behind a pewter mug.  It was dusk.

“He ought to be here soon,” said the one into whose forehead holes seemed dug and little bits of some vitreous substance left at the bottom.  “Well, mate,” cried he harshly, “what do you want that you stick to us so tight?” This was addressed to a peddler who had been standing opposite showing the contents of his box with a silent eloquence.  Now this very asperity made the portable shopman say to himself, “wants me out of the way—­perhaps buy me out.”  So he stuck where he was, and exhibited his wares.

“We don’t want your gim-cracks,” said mephistopheles quietly.

The man eyed his customers and did not despair.  “But, gents,” said he, “I have got other things besides gim-cracks; something that will suit you if you can read.”

“Of course we can read,” replied sunken-eyes haughtily; and in fact they had been too often in jail to escape this accomplishment.

The peddler looked furtively in every direction; and after this precaution pressed a spring and brought a small drawer out from the bottom of his pack.  The two rogues winked at one another.  Out of the drawer the peddler whipped a sealed packet.

“What is it?” asked mephistopheles, beginning to take an interest.

“Just imported from England,” said the peddler, a certain pomp mingling with his furtive and mysterious manner.

“——­ England,” was the other’s patriotic reply.

“And translated from the French.”

“That is better! but what is it?”

“Them that buy it—­they will see!”

“Something flash?”

“Rather, I should say.”

“Is there plenty about the women in it?”

The trader answered obliquely.

“What are we obliged to keep it dark for?”—­the other put in, “Why of course there is.”

“Well!” said sunken-eyes affecting carelessness.  “What do you want for it?  Got sixpence, Bill?”

“I sold the last to a gentleman for three-and-sixpence.  But as this is the last I’ve got—­say half a crown.”

Sunken-eyes swore at the peddler.

“What! half a crown for a book no thicker than a quire of paper?”

“Only half a crown for a thing I could be put in prison for selling.  Is not my risk to be paid as well as my leaves?”

This logic went home, and after a little higgling two shillings was offered and accepted, but in the very act of commerce the trader seemed to have a misgiving.

“I daren’t do it unless you promise faithfully never to tell you had it of me.  I have got a character to lose, and I would not have it known—­not for the world, that James Walker had sold such loose—­licentious—­”