“Once. But that was only three days.”
“Chambers, how did you come to go to work for Papadakis, anyhow?”
“Just a kind of an accident. I was broke, and he needed somebody. I blew in there to get something to eat, and he offered me a job, and I took it.”
“Chambers, does that strike you as funny?”
“I don’t know how you mean, judge?”
“That after knocking around all these years, and never doing any work, or even trying to do any, so far as I can see, you suddenly settled down, and went to work, and held a job steady?”
“I didn’t like it much, I’ll own up to that.”
“But you stuck.”
“Nick, he was one of the nicest guys I ever knew. After I got a stake, I tried to tell him I was through, but I just didn’t have the heart, much trouble as he had had with his help. Then when he had the accident, and wasn’t there, I blew. I just blew, that’s all. I guess I ought to treated him better, but I got rambling feet, judge. When they say go, I got to go with them. I just took a quiet way out.”
“And then, the day after you came back, he got killed.”