He wondered what old acquaintance this was who had come to the tramp level, and rapidly turned over in his mind all the possible candidates for trampdom he had met.
“You don’t know me, eh?” said the man again. “Well, I’ve tracked you here, and I’ve been sitting in those bushes for two hours. I heard one of the boarders say that it was your window and I waited till it was dark before I came out.”
“All this is highly interesting,” said Timothy, surveying the shrunken figure without enthusiasm, “but who are you?”
“I had a provisional pardon,” said the man, “and they put me in a sanatorium—I’ve something the matter with one of my lungs. It was always a trouble to me. I was supposed to stay in the sanatorium—that was one of the terms on which I was pardoned—but I escaped.”
Timothy stared at him with open mouth.
“Alfred Cartwright!” he breathed.
The man nodded.
“That’s me,” he said.
Timothy looked down at the edge of the black box.
“So that is why I was thinking about you,” he said. “Well, this beats all! Sit down, won’t you?”