Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/368

 Foul rat-runs, these alleys, not to be traversed by a stranger. Josh and Bill plunged into one narrow archway after another, each of which might have been the private passage of a house, and came at last, stealthy and unseen, into the muddy yard.

Weech's back-fence was before them, and black house-backs crowded them round. There were but one or two lights in the windows, and those windows were shut and curtained. The rear of Weech's house was black and silent as the front. They peered over the fence. The yard was pitch dark, but faint angular tokens here and there told of heaped boxes and lumber. "We won't tip 'im the whistle this time," whispered Bill Rann, with a smothered chuckle. "Over!"

He bent his knee, and Josh straddled from it over the rickety fence with quiet care, and lowered himself gingerly on the other side. "Clear 'ere," he whispered. "Come on." Since Bill's display of the