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 of smoke; the pothouse expert blew it to the winds, and drank till the jagged bottle stood on end upon his upturned visage. His blood ran with the overflowing wine—scarlet on purple—and for a space the draught had the curiously clarifying effect of liquor on the chronic inebriate. It made him sublimely sober for about a minute. The sparkle passed from the wine into those dim red eyes. They fixed themselves on Jan's set face. They burst into a flame of sudden recognition.

"Now I remember! Now I remember! I told him I'd seen him"

He stopped himself with a gleam of inspired cunning. He had nearly defeated his immediate ends. He looked Jan deliberately up and down, did the same by Haigh, and only then snatched up his ugly bludgeon.

"You'd better be careful with that," snapped Haigh, with the face which had terrorised generations of young boys. "And the sooner you clear out altogether, let me tell you, the safer it'll be for you!"

"No indecent haste," replied Mulberry, leaning at ease upon his weapon. The sparkle of the wine even reached that treacherous tongue of his, reviving its humour and the smatterings of other days. "Festina Whats-'er-name—meaning don't you be in such a blooming hurry! That nice young man o' yours and me, we're old partic'lars, though you mightn't think it; don't you run away with the idea that he's emptied all them bottles by his little self! It wouldn't be just. I've had my share; but he don't like paying his, and that's where there's trouble. Now we don't keep company no more, and I'm going to tell you where that nice young man an' me first took up with each other. Strictly 'tween ourselves."