“Then,” suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexity than before, “you criminate yourself.”

“No I don’t, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It stands this way. When I was his pardner, I couldn’t never give him satisfaction. Why couldn’t I never give him satisfaction? Because my luck was bad; because I couldn’t find many enough of ’em. How was his luck? Always good. Notice this! Always good! Ah! There’s a many games, Miss Abbey, in which there’s chance, but there’s a many others in which there’s skill too, mixed along with it.”

“That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?” asked Miss Abbey.

“A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,” said Riderhood, shaking his evil head.

Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. “If you’re out upon the river pretty nigh every tide, and if you want to find a man or woman in the river, you’ll greatly help your luck, Miss Abbey, by knocking a man or woman on the head aforehand and pitching ’em in.”