The man raised his head.
"Planks—where?"
Tito indicated the marsh.
"All along. They lay 'em when they come to shoot and then they let 'em lay. Nobody don't ever go there 'cept the duck shooters."
"You mean I can get across by the planks?"
Tito forgot his bashfulness and drew nearer. He was emboldened by the thought that he could help the tramp, give assistance as man to man.
"You couldn't. It's all mud and water, and turns too, like you was goin' round in rings. But I could—I bin acrost, right over to the Ariel Club." He pointed to a small white square on the opposite side. "That's where. The railroad's a ways beyont that, but it ain't awful far."
The man looked and nodded, then smiled, a slight curling of his lip, a slight contraction of the skin round his eyes.
"If you show me the way I'll give you a quarter," he said, turning the smile on Tito.
Tito did not like the smile; it suggested a dog's lifted lip when contemplating battle. Also he had been forbidden to go into the marsh; some of the streams were deep, the mud treacherous. But a quarter had seldom crossed his palm. He saw himself spending it at the crossroads store, and, tucking his boat up under his arm, said manfully: