I was robbed last night, and it served me right for being a fool. A seedy, down-looking man hangs about The Chequers all day, and he never does any work except stick up the pins in the skittle alley. He has a sly, secret look, and I fancy he is one of the stupid class of criminals. We often talk together, but there is not much to be got out of him; he usually keeps his eye on someone else's pewter, and he is catholic in his taste for drinks. Of late he has been accompanied by three other persons—a stout, slatternly woman, whom he named as his wife; a rather pretty, snub-nosed girl, who dresses in tawdry prints; and a red-faced, thick-set, dark fellow, who grins perpetually and shows a nice set of teeth. The elder man confidentially informed me that the stout young man was his son-in-law.

We had been a long time acquainted before I learned anything definite about these four. The girl usually arrives about half-past ten; she spends money freely, and the four always take home a huge can of beer. Some while ago the young man—Blackey he is nicknamed—went out, and I followed him quietly. He had been affable with me all the evening, and went so far as to offer me a drink. It struck me that he was indirectly trying to pump me, for he said, "You don't talk like none of us. I reckon you've been on the road." Moreover, when we met he had saluted me thus, "Sarishan Pala. Kushto Bak," and this salutation happens to be Rommany. As we pursued our talk, he inquired, "You rakker Rommanis?" (You speak the gipsy tongue?) and I answered, "Avo." I could see that he wanted to establish some bond of communication between us, and that was why I followed him. As I quietly came up behind him he said, "That's tacho like my dad. I dicked a bar and a pash-crooner." (That's as true as can be. I saw a sovereign and a half-crown.) He was not comfortable when he saw me, and I knew I had been a fool to let him know that I spoke Rommany. However, I passed on as if I had not heard a word. The fellow had no doubt been told that I was a tramp, and he put a feeler to find out whether I knew the language of the road. Next day we met very early. I had stayed out all night with some poachers, and I was in The Chequers by half-past seven in the morning. Master Blackey was there also, and we exchanged greetings. He was blotchy and his eyes seemed heavy; moreover, he was without a drink, and I correctly guessed that he had no money. My evil genius prompted me to ask for brandy-and-soda, which was the last thing I should have done, and Blackey said, "Us blokes can't go for sixpenny drinks. Let me 'ave a drappie levinor." The gipsy word for ale was quietly dropped in, and I ordered the right stuff as if nothing unusual had been said. Then it flashed on me. "This beauty has heard of me from the Suffolk gipsies; he knows that I carry money sometimes, and he wants to find out if I am really the laulo Rye." (The Surrey Roms call me the Boro Rye; the Suffolk Roms call me laulo Rye.)

For a good while after this the times seemed to be rather bad for the four companions. Several times I saw Blackey mutter savagely when the girl came in, and it was easy to see that he was not a full-blood gipsy, or he would never have threatened to strike her in a public bar. Then it happened that I heard a yell one night as I was stealing around the by-streets after most of the drunken people had gone home. A man's voice growled harshly—it was like the snarl of a wild beast,—"Three nights you done no good. Blarst yer slobberin'! you ain't got no more savvey than a blank blank cow. I'd put a new head on yer for tuppence."

A woman answered, "You've struck me, you swine; and if I've got a black eye I'll quod you, sure as I'm yere. Ain't I lushed you, and fed you, and found your clobber long enough?"

"Garn, you farthin' face! Shet your neck."

"All very fine, Mister Blackey, but how would you like a smack in the bloomin' eye? I done the best as I knew for you, and there ain't a bloke round as has a judy wot'll go where I goes and hand over the wongur."

"Never mind, I was waxy when I done it. Maybe we'll 'ave some luck to morrow'."

I was hidden all this time, and I kept very quiet until the pair moved away. Over my last pipe I had many meditations, and formed my own conclusions about Master Blackey.

There are, as I have said, thousands of fellows who have never done any work, and never mean to do any; they are born in various grades of life; the public-house is their temple; they live well and lie warm, and you can see a fine set of them in the full flush of their hoggish jollity at any suburban race meeting. Blackey was a fair specimen of his tribe; they are often pleasant and plausible in a certain way, and it is really a pity that they cannot be forcibly drafted into the army, for they are always men of fine physique. They are vermin, if you like, but how admirably we protect them, and how convenient are the houses of call which we provide for them.

I went warily to work with Blackey, but I was resolved all the same to see him in his home. It happens that even Blackey's household has a hanger-on, who also happens to be a parasite of mine. He is a lanky, weedy lad, with a foxy face. His dark, oblique-set eyes, his high cheek-bones, his sharp chin, are vulpine to the last degree, and, as he slouches along with his shoulders rucked up and his knees bent, he looks like the Representative Thief. He is called Patsey, and I frequently spare him a copper; but his chief patron is Blackey, who often hands him the dregs of a pot of beer.

Yesterday morning Patsey waylaid me, but I waved him off. At night he caught me going in at the back gate of The Chequers; his hand trembled as he clutched my arm, and he said with chattering teeth, "Give me a dollar, and I'll tell you somethin'."

"Tell me the something first, and then we'll see about the dollar."

"Don't you go near Blackey's place to-night. They're a goin' to ast you if they kin. Blackey's found out as you've got respectable relations as wouldn't like to see your name in the papers, and he's goin' to 'ave a new lay on. 'Taint no bloomin' error neither. The gal—Tilley, don't-cherknow—she'll say, 'I'll walk home with you a bit,' when Blackey's out. He meets you, and he says, 'Wot 'cher doin' 'long o' my wife? Didn't I trust you at home? I'll expose you.' She ain't no more his wife than I am, so you look out."

"That's worth a dollar, Patsey. Now sneak you into the stables, and don't come near me all night."

I was quite at ease, and became convivial with Blackey and his worthy father-in-law. The only thing that worried me was the knowledge that I had one note in my watch-pocket besides my loose spending money. Still I felt sure of dodging the gang, and I tried to appear innocent as possible while the artless Blackey offered me liquor after liquor; and he remarked at about ten, "My missus orfen says to me, 'Why don't you fetch him home?' she says. If he brings a bottle we'll find our lot, and he'll be just as jolly as he is at Billy Devine's. What say to come down to-night?"

"All right, only not too late."

At twelve we departed, and I was taken to a row of low cottages, which, however, were fairly solid and neat. At first we sat in a kitchen, and I was accommodated with a tub for a seat. Our light came from the fire and a dull lamp, which only made a reddened twilight in the air. The fat woman watched me like a cat, and I fancied that her mouth was like that of a carnivorous beast. The sly old man looked on the ground, but his stealthy eye—like the eye of a cunning magpie—glittered sometimes as he turned it on me. Blackey was most cordial, and soon proposed a song. He obliged first, and warbled some ghastly affair which aimed at being nautical in sentiment. The chorus contained some observations like "Hilley-hiley-Hilley-ho," and it also gave us the information that gentleman named Jack would shortly come home from the sea. The thing was a silly Cockney travesty of a sailor's song, but we were all pleased with it, and it led the way nicely to the girl's ditty, which stated that somebody was going sailing, sailing, over the bounding main (sailors always mention the sea as the bounding main), and by easy steps we got to the fat woman's "Banks of Hallan Worrrtter." We were a jovial company: four of us were wondering how they could rob the fifth, and that fifth resolved, quite early in this sÈance, to use his knuckle-duster promptly, and to prevent either of the male warblers from getting behind him, at any risk. About three o'clock the junior lady placed herself on my knee, and her husband approvingly described her as a bloomin' baggage. I did not like the special perfume which my friend employed for her hair, and I also disliked the evidences which went to prove that the bath was not her favourite luxury; but we did not fall out, and, after a spell of sprightly song, we all indulged in a dance of the most spirited description. Drink was plentiful, and, as I saw I was being plied very freely, I pretended to be eager for more. This modified the strategy of my friends, for they were reasonably anxious to secure a skinful, and they feared lest my powers might prove to be abnormal. Four watching like wild beasts! One waiting, and calculating chances! The sullen, grey-eyed old man had taken on the aspect of a ferret; the fat woman was like that awful wretch who meets the pale girl in Hogarth's "Marriage À la Mode;" the bastard gipsy smiled in "leary" fashion, as if he were coming up for the second round of a fight, and knew that he had it all own way. I pumped up jokes, and my snub-nosed charmer pretended to laugh. Ah! what a laugh.

This was the position when Blackey declared that he must go. "Got to shunt, old man? You squat still, now, and git through that there lotion. I got to go to market, and we ain't no bloomin' moke. I'm on on my stand ten o'clock—no later—and that wants doin'. The missus'll fetch me some corrfee, and, hear you, put a nip o' that booze in. It warms yer liver up. By-by. Mind you stay, now, and no faint hearts. Mother, up with your heavy wet, and try suthin' short. I'm off!"

With an ostentatious farewell, the excellent Blackey stumped off, and the four remaining revellers became staid.

"'Ard times," said the ferret-faced man; "but we've 'ad one good night out on it anyways."

"How do you make your living, may I ask, if that's a fair question, mate?" This question was addressed by me to the sly man, and he was embarrassed.

"Livin'! 'Taint no livin'. It's lingerin'. Leastways it would be if it wasn't for my gell, Tilley, there. 'Er and 'er 'usban' gives us a 'and; an' if you've got a bit about you you might 'elp us put our copper to rights. Got a thick 'un? I'll pay it back, s'elp me Gord, if the missus can start laundryin' agin'."

I saw that this meant "Show us which pocket you keep your money in," so I shamelessly said, "I'll put that square in the morning, governor." Then some silly small-talk—petty as children's babble, low as the cackle of the bar—went on, and I found myself somehow left alone with the snub-nosed young person. She was evidently in some trouble, and I was the more interested about her in that I chanced to look at a side window, and found the fat, carnivorous woman and the down-looking man surveying us with interest, under the impression that they were invisible.

Now, I have never cared for talking to girls of her class, for I do not like them. All talk about soiled doves and the rest is mere nauseous twaddle, arising from ignorance. The creatures take to their rackety life because they like it, and, though I have met some good and kind members of their class, I have observed that the majority are rapacious, cruel, and devoid of every human sentiment that does not hinge on hunger or vanity. You may treat a man as an equal in spite of his vices, and do no harm, but to treat a woman as an equal because of her vices is worse than folly. This silly creature proposed to brush my hair. I had encouraged her to familiarity, so I did not object to the toilet process, but I did most strongly object to sniffing at a bottle which she said would "freshen me up amazing." She withdrew the cork, and memories of the college laboratory struck at my brain with sudden violence on the instant. The unforgettable odour of ethyllic chloride caught at my nerves, and I politely rose.

"Pardon me, I must go. It will be daylight in half an hour," I said, for I saw that merry Miss Tilley had been ready to supplement Blackey's device by a second trick.

"I'll come with you a little way. You're dotty a bit."

I reached the fresh air and quietly said, "No, you mustn't. The men are going to factory up by the Fawcett-road, and every second man we meet will know us."

Miss Tilley muttered something, but she preserved her smile and only said, "I tell my husband as you took care of us."

As I stole through the heavy fog I thought, "Now, what business had I there? If my mother had seen that wretched servant girl brushing my hair the old lady would have died—I, the child of many prayers, the hope of a house, and stumping home on a foggy morning after sitting among the scum of earth all night. I mean to be a philosopher, but what a beastly, silly school to cultivate political philosophy in! What do I know more than I knew before?—that one vulgar girl maintains three vulgar criminals, and that all the four will come whining to the workhouse when the game is played out and they can rob no one else. They are creatures whose vices and idleness and general villany are engendered amid drink. They are the foul fungi that fatten on the walls of the public-house; that is all. And I have given them more drink only to see them plan a robbery. Seventy thousand of them in London? Yes. But supposing a few thousands of us, instead of being indifferent, instead of 'exploring' in my harum-scarum way, go to work and try to give these creatures a chance of living human lives? What then? Would Blackey or the girl or the wicked old folk have gone to the bar and eaten away their morality with alcohol if they had not been driven out by the stinking dulness of that kitchen? I don't know. I only know that when this spell is over I shall have some corrections to address to the people who stick up institutes, and organise charitable funds. I can offer myself as the horrid example, if they like, and that should impress them."

Then my musings were checked, for I had to cross a wooden bridge over the odious stream that poisoned Teddy, and the fog was like flying gruel. Carefully I picked my way over the bridge, and aimed for the dark, narrow lane that led towards my abode. I remember thinking, "What a place this would be if we were troubled with footpads!" Then came a pause. Now you know how sound travels in a fog? I saw two posts standing shadowily before me; then the posts appeared to fade away, or to be closed up in the brown haze; then I distinctly heard a whisper, "He ain't got her with him. You come after me." I was stooping, and peering to find out who whispered. Wrench! I grasped at my neck. Crack! A sound like the clanking of chains rattled in my head; a flash of many coloured flame shot before my eyes; a hundred memories came vividly to me, and I thought I was a boy again, and then I remember no more, until some voice said, "Feelin' better?"

I was a little sick, and my head was bleeding, but otherwise I had suffered no harm, and I could walk. It was as though I had received a knock-down blow in a fight, and that does not hurt one for long. But how lucky that the water was out of the mill stream! I had been pitched into about six inches of water, and a policeman who heard the splash jumped over some rails, and cut across a private paddock in time to save me from being smothered in the mud. It is now midnight; I have a man with me, and I am not quite so vigorous as I could wish, but my head is clear, and to-morrow there will only be the criss-cross mass of sticking-plaster to tell that I have been felled and robbed. I shall try to pay Mr. Blackey out. Meantime the police and public should remember that many men in London pick up a living by arranging humorous little midnight interviews like that which I went through. Only the professionals work on the Thames Embankment, and the "bashed" man, instead of going into six inches of mud, never is heard of again till his carcass is brought before the coroner.