“Well, you won’t see him here to-night,” said Jack. And then, suspiciously: “My idea is that you don’t want to see him at all, and that you’re hanging around for some other purpose.”
The tramp did not reply. He was whistling softly a distorted passage from the “Indian Love Lyrics,” and all the time his right foot was beating the time.
“He’s in a bad way, is old Brixan,” he said, and there was a certain amount of pleasure in his voice that annoyed Knebworth.
“What do you know about him?”
“I know he’s in bad with headquarters—that’s what I know,” said the tramp. “He couldn’t find where the letters went to: that’s the trouble with him. But I know.”
“Is that what you want to see him about?”
The man nodded vigorously.
“I know,” he said again. “I could tell him something if he was here, but he ain’t here.”
“If you know he isn’t here,” asked the exasperated Jack, “why in blazes do you come?”
“Because the police are chivvying me, that’s why. A copper down on the market-place is going to pinch me next time he sees me. So I thought I’d come up to fill in the time, that’s what!”