"Let's think it out together!" I had the boldness to suggest.
He laughed mirthlessly, though he was already moving southward along the square with me as he began to speak again.
"There is something I've got to think out alone," he told me. He spoke, this time without resentment, and I was glad of it. That unhappy-eyed youth had in some way got a grip, if not on my affection, at least on my interest. And in our infirmity we had a bond of sympathy. We were like two refugees pursued by the same bloodhounds and seeking the same trails of escape. I felt that I was violating no principle of reticence in taking him by the arm.
"But why can't you slip in to my digs," I suggested, "for a smoke and a drop of Bristol Milk?"
I was actually wheedling and coaxing him, as a stubborn child is coaxed.
"Milk!" he murmured. "I never drink milk."
"But, my dear man, Bristol Milk isn't the kind that comes from cows. It's seventy-year old sherry that's been sent on a sea-voyage to Australia and back. It's something that's oil to the throat and music to the senses!"
He looked at me as though the whole width of a Hudson River flowed between us.
"That sounds appealing," he acknowledged. "But I'm in a mess that even Bristol Milk won't wash me out of."
"Well, if it's that bad, it's worth forgetting for an hour or two!" I announced. He laughed again, relaxingly. I took a firmer and more fraternal grip on his arm.