“No offence, old chap,” said Meats cordially. “It’s no good my giving you an address because it won’t last, but London isn’t very big, and we’ll run up against one another again, that’s a cert. Now I’ve got to toddle off and meet a girl.”
“Have you?” asked Michael, and his enquiry was tinged with a faint longing that the other noticed at once.
“Jealous?” enquired Meats. “Why, look at all the girls round about you. It’s up to you not to feel lonely.”
“I know,” said Michael fretfully. “But how the deuce can I tell whether they want me to talk to them?”
Meats laughed shrilly.
“What are you afraid of? Leading some innocent lamb astray?”
Again to Michael occurred the ridiculous rhyme of Bo-peep. So insistent was it that he could scarcely refrain from humming it aloud.
“Of course I’m not afraid of that,” he protested. “But how am I to tell they won’t think me a brute?”
“What would it matter if they did?” asked Meats.
“Well, I should feel a fool.”