Their movements were spontaneously quick and accurate.
Perhaps it was the way they looked at me, with incurious yet
calculating eyes that nothing escaped. They seemed so worldly wise,
so indifferent, so sure of themselves. I was confident they were not
sailors. Yet, as shore-dwellers, I could not place them. They were
a type I had never encountered. Possibly I can give a better idea of
them by describing what occurred.
As they passed before us they favoured Mr. Pike with the same
indifferent, keen glances they gave me.
"What's your name--you?" Mr. Pike barked at the first of the trio,
evidently a hybrid Irish-Jew. Jewish his nose unmistakably was.
Equally unmistakable was the Irish of his eyes, and jaw, and upper
lip.
The three had immediately stopped, and, though they did not look
directly at one another, they seemed to be holding a silent
conference. Another of the trio, in whose veins ran God alone knows
what Semitic, Babylonish and Latin strains, gave a warning signal.
Oh, nothing so crass as a wink or a nod.
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