moustache upward with steady fingers, and sat very quiet, thinking long
thoughts. A quaint smile played about his eyes.

"Good for you!" said Heywood. "Now let him come, as the Lord Mayor said
of the hare. What sport! With an even chance--And what a load off
one's mind!"

He moved away to the window, as though searching for air. Instead of
moonlight, without, there swam the blue mist of dawn.

"Not a word must ever reach old Gilly," he mused. "Do you hear, Nesbit?"

"If you think," retorted the clerk, stiffly, "I don't know the proper
course of be'aviour! Not likely!"

The tall silhouette in the window made no reply, but stood grumbling
privately: "A club! Yes, where we drink out of jam-pots--dead cushions,
dead balls--no veranda--fellow that soils the inside of his cuffs first!
We're a pack of beach-combers."

He propped his elbows on the long sill, and leaned out, venting
fragments of disgust. Then of a sudden he turned, and beckoned eagerly.
"Come here, you chaps. Look-see."

The others joined him. Gray vapors from river and paddy-field, lingering
like steam in a slow breeze, paled and dispersed in the growing light,
as the new day, worse than the old, came sullenly without breath or
respite. A few twilight shapes were pattering through the narrow
street--a squad of Yamên runners haling a prisoner.