THREE HELIOS. 
“ Everything/* said the outcast, looking 
up, and then standing up. 
The sergeant stepped back a pace. His 
uniform was immaculately clean, and this 
sorry-looking stranger was not. 
“ The world seems pretty good to me ” 
he said, pushing his chest out like a pouter 
pigeon. 
“ If you were as hungry as I am,” said 
Furleigh, “ you’d think otherwise.” 
“ Cold morning given you an appetite, 
eh ? So it has me.” 
“ Well, then, go and eat, and be hanged to 
you. Don’t, stand here and talk to me about 
it, or I shall go mad.” 
“ Come along. Come and eat with me. 
I’ll buy you a breakfast.” 
Every other occupant of that bench pricked 
up his ears. Two of the men smiled cunningly, 
one swore savagely under his breath, and the 
other two looked from Furleigh to the sergeant 
and back again, and nodded knowingly. 
But there was nothing but quite innocent 
amazement in Furleigh’s voice. 
“ That’s very decent of you, sergeant,” he 
said, in accents that v,cre foreign to the 
underworld. 
As they walked side by side towards the 
little eating-house, tucked away in a quiet 
corner not far from St. Martin’s Church, 
Furleigh glanced nervously from side 
to side. The sergeant looked up at him 
curiously. 
“ Seem a little strange to be going to 
breakfast with a non-com. ? ” he asked. 
“Just a little,” answered Furleigh, and 
the sergeant nodded. 
In spite of his vaunted appetite, the ser- 
geant ate little. He sat and watched his 
man and said nothing, waiting with an art 
that, was learned in war for the psychological 
moment in which to strike. 
