Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/146

 you'll be like them: bursting with high living, drunk when you like, red and pimply. There it is—that's your aim in life—there's your pattern. Learn to read and write, learn all you can, learn cunning, spare nobody and stop at nothing, and perhaps—" he waved his hand toward the Bag of Nails. "It's the best the world has for you, for the Jago's got you, and that's the only way out, except gaol and the gallows. So do your devilmost, or God help you, Dicky Perrott—though He won't: for the Jago's got you!"

Old Beveridge had eccentric talk and manners, and the Jago regarded him as a trifle "balmy," though anything but a fool. So that Dicky troubled little to sift the meaning of what he said.

Josh Perrott's mission among the High Mob had been to discover some Mobsman who might be disposed to back him in the fight with Billy Leary. For though