 The Maltese of the Low Street are described in pungent detail as petty criminals and vice merchants although Chas does establish a friendship with some of them.This is a development of the theme of maturity and also Chas's growing sense of political identity informed by what he has read in his father's books.No mention is made of the heroic resistance that had so recently been underway on the island of Malta, and the reader is left with a lingering sense of unjustified mistrust about one character until late in the novel.