Chapter
20
WALKING down Regent Street one morning, Johnny Gray saw a familiar face—a man standing on the kerb selling penny trinkets. The face was oddly familiar, but he had gone on a dozen paces before he could recall where he had seen him before, and turned back. The man knew him; at any rate, his uncouth features twisted in a smile.
"Good morning, my lord," he said. "What about a toy balloon for the baby?"
"Your name is Fenner, isn't it?" said Johnny with a good-humoured gesture of refusal.
"That's me. Captain. I didn't think you'd recognised me. How's business?"
"Quiet," said Johnny conventionally. "What are you doing?"
The man shrugged his enormous shoulders.
"Selling these, and filling in the time with a little sluicing."
Johnny shook his head reprovingly. "'Sluicing' in the
