CHEATING THE GALLOWS.

BY I. ZANGWILL.

ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEO. HUTCHINSON.



CHAPTER I.

CURIOUS COUPLE.


[Illustration: THE CORPSE WASHED UP BY THE RIVER.]

They say that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and
perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum are always so
oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an
auctioneer, and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk.
Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of
leisure, while he supplements his own experiences of life by his
companion's.

[Illustration: TOM PETERS.]
[Illustration: EVERARD G. ROXDAL.]

There could not be an odder couple than Tom Peters and Everard G.
Roxdal--the contrast began with their names, and ran through the entire