He led the way through the narrow passage, first having extinguished the lamp.
They stood together in the dark street, whilst Jessen made sure the fastening of the house.
“Now,” he said, and in a few minutes they found themselves amidst the raucous confusion of a Walworth Road market-night.
They walked on in silence, then turning into East Street, they threaded a way between loitering shoppers, dodged between stalls overhung by flaring naphtha lamps, and turned sharply into a narrow street.
Both men seemed sure of their ground, for they walked quickly and unhesitatingly, and striking off through a tiny court that connected one malodorous thoroughfare with the other, they stopped simultaneously before the door of what appeared to be a disused factory.
A peaky-faced youth who sat by the door and acted as doorkeeper thrust his hand forward as they entered, but recognizing them drew back without a word.
They ascended the flight of ill-lighted stairs that confronted them, and pushing open a door at the head of the stairs, Jessen ushered his friend into a large hall.
It was a curious scene that met the journalist’s eye. Well acquainted with “The Guild” as he was, and with its extraordinary composition, he had never yet put his foot inside its portals. Basing his conception upon his knowledge of workingmen’s clubs and philanthropic institutions for the regeneration of degraded youth, he missed the inevitable billiard-table, he missed, too, the table strewn with month-old literature, but most of all he missed the smell of free coffee.
The floor was covered with sawdust, and about the fire that crackled and blazed at one end of the room there was a semicircle of chairs occupied by men of varying ages. Old-looking young men and young-looking old men, men in rags, men well dressed, men flashily attired in loud clothing and resplendent with shoddy jewellery. And they were drinking.
Two youths at one end of the crescent shared a quart pewter pot; the flashy man whose voice dominated the conversation held a glass of whisky in one beringed hand, and the white-haired man with the scarred face who sat with bowed head listening had a spirit glass half filled with some colourless fluid.
Nobody rose to greet the newcomers.
The flashy man nodded genially, and one of the circle pushed his chair back to give place to Jessen.
“I was just a-saying—” said the flashy man, then looked at Charles.
“All right,” signalled Jessen.
“I was just a-sayin’ to these lads,” continued the flashy one, “that takin’ one thing with the other, there’s worse places than ‘stir.’ ”
Jessen made no reply to this piece of dogmatism, and he of the rings went on.
“An’ what’s the good of a man tryin’ to go straight. The police will pull you all the same: not reportin’ change of address, loitering with intent; it don’t matter what you do if you’ve been in trouble once, you’re sure to get in again.”
There was a murmur of assent.
“Look at me,” said the speaker with pride. “I’ve never tried to go straight—been in twice an’ it took six policemen to take me last time, and they had to use the ‘stick.’ ”
Jessen looked at him with mild curiosity.
“What does that prove, except that the policemen were pretty soft?”
“Not a bit!” The man stood up.
Under the veneer of tawdry foppery, Charles detected the animal strength of the criminal.
“Why, when I’m fit, as I am now,” the man went on, “there ain’t two policemen, nor four neither, that could handle me.”
Jessen’s hand shot out and caught him by the forearm.
“Get away,” he suggested, and the man swung round like lightning, but Jessen had his other arm in a grip of iron.
“Get away,” he said again; but the man was helpless, and knew it, and after a pause Jessen released his hold.
“How was that?” he asked.
The amused smiles of the men did not embarrass the prisoner.
“The guv’nor’s different,” he explained easily; “he’s got a knack of his own that the police haven’t got.”
Jessen drew up a chair, and whatever there was in the action that had significance, it was sufficient to procure an immediate silence.
He looked round the attentive faces that were turned toward him. Charles, an interested spectator, saw the eager faces that bent in his friend’s direction, and marvelled not a little at the reproductive qualities of the seed he had sown.
Jessen began to speak slowly, and Charles saw that what he said was in the nature of an address. That these addresses of Jessen were nothing unusual, and that they were welcome, was evident from the attention with which they were received.
“What Falk has been telling you,” said Jessen, indicating the man with the rings, “is true—so far as it goes. There are worse places than ‘stir,’ and it’s true that the police don’t give an old lag a chance, but that’s because a lag won’t change his job. And a lag won’t change his job, because he doesn’t know any other trade where he gets money so quickly. Wally”—he jerked his head toward a weedy-looking youth—“Wally there got a stretch for what? For stuff that fetched thirty pounds from a fence. Twelve months hard work for thirty pounds! It works out at about 10s. 6d. a week. And his lawyer and the mouthpiece cost him a fiver out of that. Old man Garth”—he pointed to the white-headed man with the gin—“did five stretch for less than that, and he’s out on brief. His wage works out at about a shilling a week.”
He checked the impatient motion that Falk made.
“I know that Falk would say,” he went on smoothly, “that what I’m saying is outside the bargain; when I fixed up the Guild, I gave my ’davy that there wouldn’t be any parson talk or ‘Come All-Ye-Faithful’ singing. Everybody knows that being on the crook’s a mug’s game, and I don’t want to rub it in. What I’ve always said and done is in the direction of making you fellows earn bigger money at your own trade.
“There’s a man who writes
