was Mayer, at any rate. An excellent man Mayer, seated now at his window, the blinds up and the gas alight, so that all the world in swishing home through the pelting rain might glance up and note that here at any rate was a house free from guile and a man abhorring secrecy. Mr. Mayer, in tasselled smoking-cap, read the evening paper, looking down now and again from his first floor at the rain-peppered roadway when a skirt uplifted recklessly flew along. Alfred Bateson, his black coat already shining with wet, stood under the scaffolding of a public-house that was giving up its old-fashioned appearance and preparing to mirror it, and golden-letter it, and plate-glass it with the best of them.
Round the corner of the dismantled public-house, in the shadow, a four-wheeled cab rested at an angle against the kerb; with it a streaming elderly horse, hoofs extended, and looking as though it were about to give way and sob bitterly. Two figures in mackintoshes and nor'westers smoked on the box, their pipes from underneath the brim-bent hats puffing smoke that the blustering rain instantly dispersed.
If the rain appeared truculent, a word more harsh had to be found for the wind. It helped the rain a good deal, and together they were able to perform tricks that would have been impossible to either alone. Thus, when the wind suddenly screamed round a corner and blew down a show-frame at the photographer's, smashing the glass front, the rain, before the photographer could call to his wife to go out in the wet and regain it (being himself a man with prejudice against chills)—the rain had beaten down on the specimens of art thus exposed, and smiling domestics, alert young soldiers, grim-looking babies, defiant brides and bridegrooms (the latter always appearing to say, 'Who are you laughing at?') had been effectually soaked and damaged beyond repair. Similarly, when the wind discovered a silk hat on the top of a smart young man carrying a bunch of flowers and an open umbrella, it turned the umbrella inside out, despatched the silk hat for a sail in the middle of the roadway where the puddles seemed deepest, and the rain then came down on the dismayed bare-headed youth, taking the scent from his hair and the starch from his collar, thus ruining all his chances of a happy married future. Together the wind and the rain broke chimney-pots, overturned cases of eggs, soaked poor rheumatic old women, adulterated supper beer (so that its small bearers were punished for the beer's want of strength), and in a general way played the very mischief with Rotherhithe and its people.
Mr. Mayer, in one of his glances at trim ankles in the roadway, had discovered Alfred. He nodded his head, and, standing, pulled down the blind of the window at which he had been seated.
'Now for it,' said Alfred to himself. '’Pon me word, I shall be glad when the job's all over. If it wasn't too late to back out of
He felt the sample watches in his pocket, and forded the stream that had once been a road. On the other side, he went half-way down the narrow passage at the side of Mayer's house, and knocked at the side-door.
'Mis-ter Bateson,' said Mayer effusively, with the manner of one who has encountered his best and oldest friend, 'I dort you was dead.'
'You thought wrong! I've got some stuff for you—watches! watches!'
'I guessed it was you in that chob.'
'There you guessed right. Are you a buyer? We must look slippy.'
'Am I a buyer?' echoed Mayer in tones of reproof. 'Of course I am a buyer. But I buy no peeg in a poke. I must see the goots don't it?'
'Come out sharp after me. Meet me at Rotherhithe Station over the way.'
'In dree minutes,' whispered Mayer. 'I follow yoo in dree minutes. Be gautious, my friend Bateson.'
'It's a 'ell of a night,' remarked Alfred.
'So much the bedder for those who do not want gompany.'
'’Urry yourself,' urged Alfred. 'I want to get the job finished.'
Out in the roadway the four-wheeled cab was crossing, weathering the gale clumsily. The light from a weeping gas-lamp touched the features of one of its occupants.
'Mother Fayres!' he ejaculated. And stopped dead in the passage.