aspect. At one end of it a small dais supported a severe-looking
arm-chair and a long flat desk, on which were piled foolscap, blank legal
forms, law-books, and the Bible. In front was a long, form-like bench,
with a back to it. At the rear of the room were two strongly-built
cells, with barred doors. Around the walls were scattered a double row
of small chairs and, on a big, green-baize-covered board next the cells
hung a brightly burnished assortment of handcuffs and leg-irons.

"'Tis here we hould coort," Slavin informed him, "whin we have any
shtiffs tu be thried."

Opening the front door George lugged in his bedding and kit-bags and,
depositing them on his cot, flung off his fur coat, cap, and serge.
Slavin divested himself likewise and, as the burly, bull-necked man stood
there, slowly filling his pipe, Redmond was able to scan the face and
massive proportions of his superior more closely.

Standing well over six feet, for the presentment of vast, though
perchance clumsy, gorilla-like strength, George reflected with slight awe
that he had never seen the man's equal. His wide-spreading shoulders
were more rounded than square; his deep, arching chest, powerful, stocky
nether limbs and disproportionately long, huge-biceped arms seeming to
fit him as an exponent of the mat rather than the gloves. Truly a
daunting figure to meet in a close-quarter, rough-and-tumble encounter!
thought Redmond. The top of his head was completely bald; his thick,
straight black brows indicating that what little close-cropped iron-gray
hair remained must originally have been coal-black in colour. His
Irish-blue eyes, alternately dreamy and twinklingly alert, were deeply
set in a high-cheeked-boned, bronzed face, with a long upper-lipped,
grimly-humorous mouth. Its expression in repose gave subtle warning that