Once, as though aroused from a reverie, he asked, "Wasn't there some others?"
"Others?" said Dave, for a moment taken aback. "O, yes, there was some others. They're gone on ahead, y'know."
Joey tramped for half a mile in silence. Then he said, "Expect they're 'avin' a rough time too."
"Ah—very like," said Dave.
For a space Joey was silent, save for the cough. Then he went on: "Comes o' not bringing 'cordions with 'em. Every one ought to take a 'cordion what goes trampin'. I knew a man once that went trampin', an' 'e took a 'cordion. He done all right. It ain't so rough for them as plays on the 'cordion." And Dave Burge rubbed his cap about his head and stared; but answered nothing.
It was a bad day. Crusts were begged at cottages. Every rise and every turn, the eternal yellow road lay stretch on stretch before them, flouting their unrest. Joey, now unimpressionable, endured more placidly than even Dave Burge. Late in the afternoon, "No," he said, "it ain't so rough for them as plays the 'cordion. They 'as the best of it.... S'elp me," he added suddenly, "we're all 'cordions!" He sniggered thoughtfully, and then burst into a cough that left him panting. "We're nothin' but a bloomin' lot o' 'cordions ourselves," he went on, having got his breath, "an' they play any toon they like on us; an' that's 'ow they make their livin'. S'elp me, Dave, we're all 'cordions." And he laughed.
"Um—yus," the other man grunted. And he looked curiously at his mate; for he had never heard that sort of laugh before.
But Joey fondled the conceit, and returned to it from time to time; now aloud, now to himself. "All 'cordions: playin' any toon as is ordered, blimy.... Are we 'cordions? I don't b'lieve we're as much as that ... no, s'elp me. We're on'y the footlin' little keys; shoved about to soot the toon.... Little tin keys, blimy ... footlin' little keys.... I've bin played on plenty, I 'ave...."
Dave Burge listened with alarm, and tried to talk of other things. But Joey rarely heard him. "I've bin played on plenty, I 'ave," he persisted. "I was played on once by a pal: an' my spring broke."
At nightfall there was more bad luck. They were driven from a likely barn by a leather-gaitered man with a dog, and for some distance no dormitory could be found. Then it was a cut haystack, with a nest near the top and steps to reach it.