It was after one such long, meditative gazing into the glowing and leaping embers that he spoke to me, and with such a ring in his voice as caused me to look upon him with a new interest. The tone of the voice, it seemed to me, hinted at some deep thought.
"Where do you come from, Francis?" he asked. "What is your nationality?"
"Why, I'm a Cosmopolitan," said I, half smiling, as one is prone to do when a man asks him some trivial matter with a voice as serious as though he spoke of strange things.
"Yes; we all are," said Apache Kid, putting aside my lightness. "But is n't it Edinburgh you come from?"
"Yes," said I.
He mused again at my reply, plucking his finger-knuckles, and then turned an eye to Donoghue, who was already surveying him under his watchful brows.
"Shall I tell him?" he asked.
"Tell him what?" said Donoghue, looking uncomfortable, I thought, as though this mood of his partner's was one he did not relish.
"Tell him what we are—how we live—all that?"
From Apache to me and back again Donoghue glanced, and then: "Oh! tell, if you like," said he. "There won't no harm come from telling him. He's safe. He 's all right, is Francis."