THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 517

Nobody else bothered about him at all. They glanced
in his direction and then looked indifferently away. Yet
in a week or two perhaps, they might all of them be talk-
ing about him. But then he would not be Turgis any
more, Mrs. Pelumpton's lodger and the railway and
shipping clerk at Twigg and Dersingham's; he would be
the Maida Vale Flat Murderer; and as that, he could
set huge machines in motion, send men running here
and there, men with notebooks, men with cameras;
news editors would mention him at conferences; sub-
editors would rack their brains for good headlines
for him; reporters would describe his little room in
Nathaniel Street and interview Mrs. Pelumpton;
columns on his "ill-fated romance" would be com-
missioned for the Sunday papers; good money would be
paid for the smallest snapshot of him; every detail of
his past would be sent roaring through the printing
machines; men who had known him would boast of it;
special contributors would comment on his story and
his fate for twenty guineas a thousand words; scholarly
criminologists would make a note of his case for future
reference; novelists and dramatists would see if he could
be worked up into anything good; millions would talk
about him, would denounce him, would cry for his
execution, would sign petitions, or perhaps pray for his
soul; if he were set free, ten thousand women would be
ready to marry him, and any halting sentences he could
produce about himself would be handsomely paid for
and conjured into The Story of My Life, announced on
innumerable placards and hoardings: he would be
somebody at last-the Maida Vale Flat Murderer, As
yet, however, he was only a shabby, hollow-eyed youth
with a vacant look, huddled in a seat that slowly moved