"You wanted to see me?" said Thomas, opening a conversation.
"Oh! nothin' perticlar, guvnor. I only wanted to see if I could do anything for you," said Jim.
"I was in hopes you had heard of something I lost, but I suppose it's at the bottom of the river," said Thomas.
"Not your watch?" asked Salter, with some appearance of anxious interest.
"A great deal worse," answered Thomas; "a pocket-book."
"Much in it?" asked Jim, with a genuine look of sympathetic discomfiture.
"More than I like to think of. Look," said Thomas, turning out the contents of his pocket, "that is all I have in the world."
"More than ever I had," returned Salter; "keep me a month."
Thomas relapsed into thought. This man was the only resemblance of a friend he had left. He did not like to let him go loose in the wilds of London, without the possibility of finding him again. If this man vanished, the only link Thomas felt between him and the world of men would be broken. I do not say Thomas thought this. He only felt that he would be absolutely alone when this man left him. Why should he not go away somewhere with him?
"Where do you live?" he asked.