“Well, it’s the same society here.”

“Is it?”

Scanlan looked at him long and fixedly. There was something sinister in his eyes.

“Isn’t it?”

“You’ll tell me that in a month’s time. I hear you had a talk with the patrolmen after I left the train.”

“How did you know that?”

“Oh, it got about—things do get about for good and for bad in this district.”

“Well, yes. I told the hounds what I thought of them.”

“By the Lord, you’ll be a man after McGinty’s heart!”

“What, does he hate the police too?”

Scanlan burst out laughing. “You go and see him, my lad,” said he as he took his leave. “It’s not the police but you that he’ll hate if you don’t! Now, take a friend’s advice and go at once!”

It chanced that on the same evening McMurdo had another more pressing interview which urged him in the same direction. It may have been that his attentions to Ettie had been more evident than before, or that they had gradually obtruded themselves into the slow mind of his good German host; but, whatever the cause, the boarding-house keeper beckoned the young man into his private room and started on the subject without any circumlocution.

“It seems to me, mister,” said he, “that you are gettin’ set on my Ettie. Ain’t that so, or am I wrong?”

“Yes, that is so,” the young man answered.

“Vell, I vant to tell you right now that it ain’t no manner of use. There’s someone slipped in afore you.”

“She told me so.”

“Vell, you can lay that she told you truth. But did she tell you who it vas?”

“No, I asked her; but she wouldn’t tell.”

“I dare say not, the leetle baggage! Perhaps she did not vish to frighten you avay.”

“Frighten!” McMurdo was on fire in a moment.

“Ah, yes, my friend! You need not be ashamed to be frightened of him. It is Teddy Baldwin.”

“And who the devil is he?”

“He is a boss of Scowrers.”

“Scowrers! I’ve heard of them before. It’s Scowrers here and Scowrers there, and always in a whisper! What are you all afraid of? Who are the Scowrers?”

The boarding-house keeper instinctively sank his voice, as everyone did who talked about that terrible society. “The Scowrers,” said he, “are the Eminent Order of Freemen!”