"Only your lordship should have said: 'Who the devil are you?'"

Lord Ronsdale looked before him to where, in the distance, near a street
lamp, the figure of a policeman might be dimly discerned; then, with
obvious intention, he started toward the officer; but the man stepped in
front of him. "No, you don't," he said.

The impassive, steel-like glance of Ronsdale played on the man; a white,
shapely hand began to reach out. "One moment, and I'll give you in
charge as--"

The fellow saw that Ronsdale meant it; he had but an instant to decide;
a certain air of cheap, jaunty assurance he had begun to assume
vanished. "All right," he said quickly, but with a ring of suppressed
venom in his voice. "I'll be off. Your lordship has it all your own way
since the _Lord Nelson_ went down." There was a note of bitterness in
his tones. "Besides, Dandy Joe's not exactly a favorite at headquarters
just now, after the drubbing John Steele gave him."

"John Steele!" Lord Ronsdale looked abruptly round.

The fellow regarded him and ventured to go on: "I was witness for the
police and Mr. Gillett, and he--Steele," with a curse, "had me on the
stand. He knows every rook and welsher and every swell magsman, and all
their haunts and habits. And he knows me--blame--" he made use of
another expression more forcible--"if he don't know me as well as if
he'd once been a pal. And now," in an injured tone, "Mr. Gillett calls
me hard names for bringing discredit, as he terms it, on the force."

"What's this to me?"