And this working man with the uncertain mouth and blurred eyes—this man whose walk, whose speech, whose coal-grimed face, and the smell even of his tarry clothes, was so familiar to them—was the symbol of it all.
A big navvy came sheepishly out of the last house in the row and stopped him. It was the man who had insulted Ernie in the Star six months before.
"I ask your pardon, Ern," he said. "I didn't mean what I said."
Ern shook hands. Years before the two had been at school together under Mr. Pigott.
"It wasn't you, Reube," he said. "I knaw who spread the dung you rolled in."
"I shan't be caught again," replied the other. "That's a sure thing."
Ern jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
"Keep an eye to her!" he whispered.
"You may lay to it," the big man answered.
At the corner a young girl of perhaps fifteen ran out suddenly, flung herself into his arms, kissed him, with blind face lifted to the sky, and was gone again.