To lose sight of any man for twenty-four hours, nowadays,--Well, it's not hardly fair.

Is it ?" They turned down a black lane, carpeted with dry rubbish.

At long intervals, a lantern guttering above a door showed them a hand's-breadth of the dirty path, a litter of broken withes and basket-weavers' refuse, between the mouldy wall of the town and a row of huts, no less black and silent.

In this greasy rift the air lay thick, as though smeared into a groove.
Suddenly, among the hovels, they groped along a checkered surface of brick-work.

The flare of Heywood's match revealed a heavy wooden door, which he hammered with his fist.