Gager, during his
conference with his colleague Bunfit, had been dressed in plain black
clothes; but in spite of his plain clothes he looked every inch a
policeman. There was a stiffness about his limbs, and, at the same time, a
sharpness in his eyes, which, in the conjunction with the locality in
which he was placed, declared his profession beyond the possibility of
mistake. Nor, in that locality, would he have desired to be taken for
anything else. But as he entered the "Rising Sun" in Meek Street, there
was nothing of the policeman about him. He might probably have been taken
for a betting man, with whom the world had latterly gone well enough to
enable him to maintain that sleek, easy, greasy appearance which seems to
be the beau ideal of a betting man's personal ambition. "Well, Mr.
Howard," said the lady at the bar, "a sight of you is good for sore eyes."
"Six penn'orth of brandy--warm, if you please, my dear," said the pseudo-
Howard, as he strolled easily into an inner room, with which he seemed to
be quite familiar. He seated himself in an old-fashioned wooden arm-chair,
gazed up at the gas lamp, and stirred his liquor slowly.
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