“Yes,” said he, “the passport. Let me see your hand.”
When I held out my hand he looked at it closely for a moment, and then took it with a quick warm pressure in one of his, and gave it a little shake, in a way not quite American.
“You are one of us,” said he, “you work.”
I thought at first that it was a bit of pleasantry, and I was about to return it in kind when I saw plainly in his face a look of solemn intent.
“So,” he said, “we shall travel like comrades.”
He thrust his scarred hand through my arm, and we walked up the road side by side, his bulging pockets beating first against his legs and then against mine, quite impartially.
“I think,” said the stranger, “that we shall be arrested at Kilburn.”
“We shall!” I exclaimed with something, I admit, of a shock.
“Yes,” he said, “but it is all in the day's work.”
“How is that?”