I am Bob Mellish. You ask--"

"Here. Come out of this," said one of the party, a powerful man with
a scarred face and crushed nose, grasping Mellish and thrusting him
into the train. "Y'll 'ave to clap a beefsteak on that ogle of
yours, where you napped the Dutchman's auctioneer, Byron. It's got
more yellow paint on it than y'll like to show in church to-morrow."

At this they all gave a roar of laughter, and entered a third-class
carriage. Lydia and Alice had but just time to take their places in
the train before it started.

"Eeally, I must say," said Alice, "that if those were Mr. Cashel
Byron's and Lord Worthington's associates, their tastes are very
peculiar."

"Yes," said Lydia, almost grimly. "I am a fair linguist; but I did
not understand a single sentence of their conversation, though I
heard it all distinctly."

"They were not gentlemen," said Alice. "You say that no one can tell
by a person's appearance whether he is a gentleman or not; but
surely you cannot think that those men are Lord Worthington's
equals."

"I do not," said Lydia. "They are ruffians; and Cashel Byron is the
most unmistakable ruffian of them all."

Alice, awestruck, did not venture to speak again until they left the
train at Victoria. There was a crowd outside the carriage in which