Page:Hopkinson Smith--In Dickens's London.djvu/109

LONDON BRIDGE of joy and suffering into the carpet of the broad highway. And when the shadows began to fall and the night to settle, and as in Nancy's time, "a mist hung over the river, deepening the red glare of the fires that burnt upon the small craft moored off the different wharves, and rendering darker and more indistinct the murky buildings on the banks," and "the old smoke-stained store houses on either side, rose heavy and dull from the dense mass of roofs and gables, and frowned sternly upon water too black to reflect even their lumbering shapes," I folded my trap and again sought Bobby.

He was leaning against the parapet, watching the traffic. Now and then he would nod to some one he knew, or wave his hand as a warning to an impetuous driver, his glance sweeping the broad road thronged with hurrying thousands.

As he caught sight of me, his face lighted up and he made a quick step in my direction.

"Rough part of London, isn't it?" I began.

"Yes—'long down by the river; not here."

"Of course you've been on the force some time?" I continued.

"Oh, yes, about twenty years."

The talk now drifted into his daily duties—the hours he was on post—how and where his orders were received; and so, following the bent of my mind, I told him—this time in detail knowing that in London life reflects every shade of crime; knowing, too, that no one understands its intricacies better than the police—the whole story of Fagin and Bill Sykes the traffic having slackened somewhat and sustained conversation being the easier.

That the story was impressing him very strongly I soon 61