“Was he carrying a rug and a bag?” asked one of the men without hesitation.

“He was,” I replied.  “He is the man I want.  Which way did he go when he left here?”

“He took Jim Boulter’s cab,” said another man, who had until a few moments before been leaning against the wall.  “The Short ’Un was alookin’ after it for ’im, and I heard him call Jimmy myself.  He tossed the Short ’Un a bob, he did, when he got in.  Such luck don’t seem ever to come my way.”

“Where is the Short ’Un, as you call him?” I inquired, thinking that it might be to my advantage to interview that gentleman.

“A-drinkin’ of his bob in there,” the man answered.  “Where d’ye think ye’d be a-seein’ ‘im?  Bearin’ ’isself proud like a real torf, and at closen’ time they’ll be chuckin’ ’im out into the gutter, and then ’is wife ’ll come down, and they ‘ll fight, an’ most like both of ’em ’ll get jugged before they knows where they is, and come before the beak in the mornin’.”

“Look here,” I said, “if one of you will go in and induce the gentleman of whom you speak to come out here and talk to me, I would not mind treating the four of you to half-a-crown.”

The words had scarcely left my lips before a deputation had entered the house in search of the gentleman in question.  When they returned with him one glance was sufficient to show me that the Short ’Un was in a decidedly inebriated condition.  His friends, however, deeming it possible that their chance of appreciating my liberality depended upon his condition being such as he could answer questions with some sort of intelligence, proceeded to shake and pummel him into something approaching sobriety.  In one of his lucid intervals I inquired whether he felt equal to telling me in what direction the gentleman who had given him the shilling had ordered the cabman to drive him.  He turned the question over and over in his mind, and then arrived at the conclusion that it was “some hotel close to Waterloo.”

This was certainly vague, but it encouraged me to persevere.

“Think again,” I said; “he must have given you some definite address.”

“Now I do remember,” said the man, “it seems to me it was Foxwell’s Hotel, Waterloo Road.  That’s where it was, Foxwell’s Hotel.  Don’t you know it?

  “Foxwell’s Hotel is a merry, merry place,
  When the jolly booze is flowin’, flowin’ free.”

Now chorus, gen’men.”

Having heard all I wanted to, I gave the poor wretches what I had promised them, and went in search of a cab.  As good luck would have it I was able to discover one in the City Road, and in it I drove off in the direction of Waterloo.  If Hayle were really going to stay the night at Foxwell’s Hotel, then my labours had not been in vain, after all.  But I had seen too much of that gentleman’s character of late to put any trust in his statements, until I had verified them to my own satisfaction.  I was not acquainted with Foxwell’s Hotel, but