Simultaneously the moon, naturally on George's side and anxious to do all that it could to help, went behind a thick cloud and stayed there. No human eye, therefore, had witnessed the young man's climb for life.
The persons whom he had heard on the fire-escape were a couple who, like himself, had no object in mind other than a swift removal of themselves from the danger-zone. And so far were they from being hostile to George that each, had they seen him, would have urged him on and wished him luck. For one of them was Madame Eulalie and the other no less a man than J. Hamilton Beamish in person.
Hamilton Beamish, escorting his bride-to-be, had arrived at the Purple Chicken a few minutes after George, and, like George, had found the place crowded to its last table. But unlike George, he h
