"Is that right, Mike?" he asked, pointing to the long melancholy promenade that showed up ashore. "Is that where the toffs go to pick up the flash molls?"
"Oh, indade, I don't know," said Mike.
The Inquisitive One fell to chatting with Scholar, but asking questions in a way wholly different from that of the two catechists whom Scholar had desired to keep at arm's length—the Cardiff man, and the man from Fife in Scotland.
"Mike!" he said, suddenly. "Mike, Scholar has a mother!"
"Well, what about it?" asked Mike. "I expect ye had wan yersilf."
The Inquisitive One looked far off briefly, then a new thought came again to him.
"Got a father?" he asked, turning back to Scholar.
There was a look in Scholar's eyes that seemed somehow akin with that baffled look that showed in Mike's. He nodded. The Inquisitive One stood back, hands in pockets, and examined him with great interest.
"You're going home?" he said, accentuating the word. "You have a home?"
Mike turned away slightly. The Inquisitive One waggled his head sidewise as a sign that he wanted to draw Scholar aside again. Nobody who heard had jeered; some had pretended not to hear; only the chumming Welshman and the man from Dysart in Fife, standing together and apart, looked scorn, hate, contempt at these other two. Scholar was amazed to see that there were tears in the eyes of the Inquisitive One as he said: