“I’m Daniel Berry,” replied the nephew.
“Well, I’m damned—never saw you since you were a kid.”
Rather awkwardly at this late hour the two shook hands.
“How are you, lad?”
“All right. I thought you were in Australia.”
“Been back three months—bought a couple of these damned things,”—he kicked the tyre of his taxi-cab in affectionate disgust. There was a moment’s silence.
“Oh, but I’m going back out there. I can’t stand this cankering, rotten-hearted hell of a country any more; you want to come out to Sydney with me, lad. That’s the place for you—beautiful place, oh, you could wish for nothing better. And money in it, too.—How’s your mother?”
“She died at Christmas,” said the young man.
“Dead! What!—our Anna!” The big man’s eyes stared, and he recoiled in fear. “God, lad,” he said, “that’s three of ’em gone!”
The two men looked away at the people passing along the pale grey pavements, under the wall of Trinity Church.