"Eh?"
"Skulky's 'opped the twig an' sneaked your tools. Gawd knows where 'e is by now."
"No—" the little man gasped, sitting up in a pale sweat.... "Not sneaked 'em ... is 'e?... S'elp me, there's a set o' callipers worth fifteen bob in that bag ... 'e ain't gawn ...?"
Dave Burge nodded inexorably.
"Best feel in your pockets," he said, "p'raps 'e's bin there."
He had. The little man broke down. "I was a-goin' to send 'ome that two bob—s'elp me, I was.... An' what can I do without my tools? If I'd got no job I could 'a pawned 'em—an' then I'd 'a sent 'ome the money—s'elp me I would.... O, it's crool!"
The walking, with the long sleep after it, had left him sore and stiff, and Dave had work to put him on the road again. He had forgotten yesterday afternoon, and asked, at first, for the others. They tramped in silence for a few miles: when Joey suddenly flung himself upon a tussock by the wayside.
"Why won't nobody let me live?" he snivelled. "I'm a 'armless bloke enough. I worked at Ritterson's, man and boy, very nigh twenty year. When they come an' ordered us out, I come out with the others, peaceful enough; I didn't want to chuck it up, Gawd knows, but I come out promp' when they told me. And when I found another job on the Island, four big blokes set about me an' 'arf killed me. I didn't know the place was blocked. And when two o' the blokes was took up, they said I'd get strike-pay again if I didn't identify 'em; so I didn't. But they never give me no strike-pay—they laughed an' chucked me out. An' now I'm a-starvin' on the 'igh road. An' Skulky ... blimy ... 'e's done me too!"
There were days wherein Joey learned to eat a swede pulled from behind a wagon, and to feel thankful for an early turnip; might have learned, too, just what tramping means in many ways to a man unskilled both in begging and in theft, but was never equal to it. He coughed—and worse: holding to posts and gates, and often spitting blood. He had little to say, but trudged mechanically, taking note of nothing.