"Is this the boy you wanted me to talk with?" asked Hamblin, as Ned drew up his boat and approached the group.
"The same," laughed Jack, "only you mustn't call him a boy! He's a big man in his own country."
Hamblin eyed Ned critically for a minute and extended his hand. Ned laughed as he took it.
"I've met you before!" he said.
"In a cheap lodging house on the Bowery," said Hamblin. "You were looking for a man who had robbed a bank an' made a run for it."
"Exactly," Ned said.
"An' the bloomin' moocher was in the next room to mine, an' you got him. I was bloody well glad to get the five p'un' note you tipped me then. Stone broke I was."
"You earned it," Ned replied.
"It put me on me legs again," Hamblin went on. "An' I took ship an' come out to this blasted country. I wish I was on the Bowery again, blast me eyes if I don't."
"What are you doing here?" asked Ned.