I'd pay someone else--someone who wasn't what you called yourself just now--to look after 'em." Larpent's voice was eminently practical if somewhat devoid of sympathy.

"Gutter-snipes are damned quick to pick up--things they ought not," he observed dryly.
Saltash stirred uncomfortably in his chair as though something pricked him.

"Think I'm a contaminating influence ?" he said.
Larpent shrugged his shoulders.

"It's not for me to say.

All diseases are not catching--any more than they are incurable." "Ho!" Saltash laughed suddenly and rather bitterly.