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 consideration. After such a person there were apt to be inquiries, with money to back them, and vengeance sharp and certain: the thing, indeed, was commonly thought too risky. And this man, so unflinchingly confident, must needs have reason for it. He might have the police at instant call—they might be back in the Jago at the moment. And he flung them back, commanded them, cowed them with his hard, intelligent eyes, like a tamer among beasts.

"Understand this, now," he went on, with a sharp tap of his stick on the floor. "This is a sort of thing I will not tolerate in my parish—in this parish; nor in any other place where I may meet it. Go away, and try to be ashamed of yourselves—go. Go, all of you, I say, to your own homes; I shall come there and talk to you again soon. Go along, Sam Cash—you've a broken head already, I see. Take it away; I shall come and see you too."