“Are you better, Bill?” I said.
“Better?” he said sharply; “what do you mean by better? I’m all right.”
“That’s well,” I said.
“Of course it is. Now look here, Ant’ny, I’ve been thinking a good deal about that there big-a-mee as we come along, and I’ll just tell you what I should have done.”
I heard Mary give a gulp; but I thought it better not to try and thwart him, so prepared to listen.
“You see, Ant’ny,” he said, in a very didactic manner, “when a fellow is in the force, and is always taking up people and getting up cases, and attending at the police-courts, and Old Bailey sessions and coroners’ inquests, he picks up a deal of valuable information.”
“Of course, Bill.”
“He do; it stands to reason that he do. Well, then, I ought to know just two or three things.”
“Say two or three thousand, Bill.”
“Well,” he said, giving his head an official roll, as if settling it in his great stock, “we won’t say that. Let’s put it at ’undreds—two or three ’undreds. Now, if I’d had such a case as that big-a-mee in hand, I should have begun at the beginning.—Where are we now?” he said, after a pause, during which he had taken off his hat, and rubbed his head in a puzzled way.