"What-o, matey!" he remarked in a harsh cockney voice.
"Merciful 'Eavens!" gasped out that worthy, covering his eyes with his
hands, one more incredulous witness of Cleek's greatest gift. "Bill Jones
it is! _Gawd!_ are you a devil?"
"No, just an ordinary man, my dear friend. But you remember now, eh?
Well, that does away with the need of the moustache, then." The clerk of
the court, only too familiar with Cleek's disregard of legal formality,
frowned at this violation of dignity and raised his mace to rap for order
and possibly to reprimand Cleek for his theatrical conduct but at that
moment the detective pulled off the cap and moustache as though well
pleased with his performance. Cleek turned once more to the judge.
"My lord," he said serenely, "you have seen the man Bill Jones, and the
impersonator of Sammie Robinson is there," he pointed to Dollops. "Well,
this man Borkins--or Piggott, as he calls himself when doing his 'private
work'--engaged Dollops and me, in place of two hands in the factory who
had been given to too much tongue-wagging, and in consequence had met
with prompt punishment, God alone knows what it was! We worked there for
something just under a fortnight.
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