“Suppose you tell me yours?”
“I have no cause to be ashamed of it. My name is Stephen, and men call me ‘le Bulenger.’”
“Have they always called you so?”
“Are you going to catechise me?” laughed Stephen. “No—you are right there. Fifteen years ago they called me ‘Esueillechien.’ Now, have you heard my name before?”
“I cannot say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ unless you choose to come home with me to see my mother. She may know you better than I can.”
“I’ll come home with you fast enough,” Stephen was beginning, when the end of the sentence dashed his hopes down. “‘To see your—mother!’ That won’t do, young man. I have looked myself on her dead face—or else you are not the man for whom I took you.”
“I can answer you no questions till you do so,” replied Rudolph firmly.
“Come, then, have with you,” returned Stephen, linking his arm in that of the younger man. “Best to make sure. I shall get to know something, if it be only that you are not the right fellow.”
“Now?” asked Rudolph, rather disconcertedly. He was not in the habit of acting in this ready style about everything that happened, but required a little while to make up his mind to a fresh course.
“Have you not found out yet,” said Stephen, marching him into Saint Paul’s Churchyard, “that now is the only time a man ever has for anything?”