‘For years past.’
‘I never saw your face before to-night’
‘No, sir. I walk in on Sunday nights to hear you, but I go to the back of the gallery.’
‘You tramp twelve miles of a Sunday night to hear me?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Summer-time, eh?’
‘Any weather.’
‘Present the deadly tube. I’ll stand the charge.’ He thrust Paul’s poem into the pocket of a loose alpaca overcoat ‘I was saying that you were in my debt. You made me talk ten minutes longer than I ought to have done, and I’ve lost my train. There’s not another for forty minutes. Come and march the platform.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘What’s your name?’