Let's have a look at this young highwayman, who so freely advertises himself as an amateur." The light spat full into the gaunt, starved face of the young man and made it stare forth doubly ghastly.

He had made no effort to get away from the very first.

Perhaps he understood the uselessness of it, with that strong hand gripped on his ragged neckband.

Perhaps he was, in his way, something of a fatalist--London breeds so many among such as he: starved things that find every boat chained, every effort thrust back upon them unrewarded.

At any rate, from the moment he had heard the girl give to this man a name which every soul in England had heard at one time or another during the past two years, he had gone into a sort of mild collapse, as though realising the utter uselessness of battling against fate, and had given himself up to what was to be.
"Hello," said Cleek, as he looked the youth over.