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Thin shivers of excitement rippled up and down his spine and his blood crinkled in his veins. Squatting close to the sloppy wall, he thrust out one leg and waited. He could feel the quarry come on, the big blowing body of him, the groping, outstretched arms. His leg stiffened rigid as a bar of iron. With a crash the man fell headlong across it. The boy laughed aloud and sheered aside, barely missing a knife which hurtled past and stuck quivering in the opposite wall.

As he sped along, a door suddenly opened in the blank wall beside him, and a stream of ruddy light gushed out, catching him square within its radiance, mud-spattered, starry-eyed, vivid.

A man stood framed in the doorway.

"Come in," he commanded briefly.

The boy obeyed. Surreptitiously he wiped the wet and mud from his face and tried to reduce his wild breathing.

The room which he entered was meagre and stale-smelling, with bare floor and stained and sagging wall-paper; unfurnished save for a battered deal table and some chairs.