“If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn’t.”
“Ah!” says he, “there’s something in that.”
When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me on the chest.
“You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there.”
“I have, Mr. Click.”
“I hope, Tom,” lowering his voice in a friendly way, “it isn’t coining, or smashing?”
“No, Mr. Click. Don’t be uneasy.”
“Nor yet forg—” Mr. Click checked himself, and added, “counterfeiting anything, for instance?”
“No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line—Fine-Art line—but I can say no more.”
“Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as well as I make it out?” said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.