But how to lay hands upon Bent Pitman, except by advertisement, was not so clear.

And even so, in what terms to ask a meeting?
on what grounds?
and where?
Not at John Street, for it would never do to let a man like Bent Pitman know your real address; nor yet at Pitman's house, some dreadful place in Holloway, with a trapdoor in the back kitchen; a house which you might enter in a light summer overcoat and varnished boots, to come forth again piecemeal in a market-basket.

That was the drawback of a really efficient accomplice, Morris felt, not without a shudder.

'I never dreamed I should come to actually covet such society,' he thought.

And then a brilliant idea struck him.