The dance was yet in its fullest vigor, when Hitch returned and called Bell to one of the tables.
"Bell", said he, "I have been looking for you more eagerly than any of your lovers for several months past--though I found you at length by an accident. What have you done with the bloke?"
"Me, Hitch? Why, I have neither seen or heard of him."
"Come, Bell, it's no use our wasting time in small talk. You were with him the last night he was heard of."
"Not I, faith, Hitch. Bring me the book, and I'll swear No to that."
"Blast the super! for I fear it has got me into a muss."
"If I take you to Newgate for it, Bell, it will be apt to get you into a halter."
"Well, then it will save me from the Bay fever, or dying in the gutter; for all such as I am must draw one of the three chances."
"Make me your confessor, Bell, without any equivocation or drawback, and I may stand between you and Jack Ketch."
"That depends upon circumstances. Is the bloke living or dead?"
"Living, for all I know to the contrary."
"If I do, may I cly the jerk at a drag; be trussed in a Kilmainham garter, and fall to the surgeons."
"Well, it may be so," said Hitch, musing; "for if you knew all, half the world would have known it before this time. However, Bell, you can supply a link or two in the chain of evidence, so give me the particulars; and remember, if you tell me a lie I will smell it as it comes out of your mouth."
Just then the guests of the Crooked Billet were interrupted by an uproar in the street.
"Some swells on a lark," exclaimed lawyer Knapp; "dub the jigger and let them in."
And Jim was right; for on the jigger being dubbed, in staggered four bloods, who were sufficiently top-heavy to be ready for any thing. Two of the newcomers, who prided themselves on "knowing the ropes," while their companions were green from the fens. Immediately on their entrance, this hopeful addition to the convivial party already assembled, began to exhibit their "tip-top education" by squaring off for a fight, pattering flash, and ordering in lush. In fact, they out-heroded Herod, for they proved themselves to be yet greater blackguards than the poor rogues whom they were so emulous to imitate. And yet they were "gentlemen," who would have been shocked at the touch of a mechanic, though they gloried in doing things up nutty, like pickpockets and highwaymen. But they were not such knowing kiddies after all, though they considered themselves bang up to the mark; for suddenly one of them cried out that he had lost his purse; and then they all discovered that they had lost every thing they had which was fairly removable. Thereupon there was a devil of a muss, generally, with vociferous calling for the police. The four fellows who had the four worst hats, exchanged them _sans ceremonie_ with the strangers, while a couple of fogle-hunters tore off the skirts of their coats to mend their breeches. To finish their spree, by and by in rushed the police, and, on the charge of an elderly, responsible-looking cracksman, hurried the bloods off to the nearest station-house. What rascally things are policemen! Alas! and alack! just about as rascally as all the rest of the world.