Such wholesome reflections occupied his thoughts until the onset of the dusk stirred him to departure. He crept out of his hiding-place and stretched his limbs which had got very stiff, and was on the point of reconnoitring from the door of the shed when he became aware of stealthy footsteps outside.
With the quickness of an animal he shot back into his hiding-place. The footsteps had halted. For a long time it seemed the unseen waited, listening. Had he heard Bealby?
Then someone fumbled with the door of the shed; it opened, and there was a long pause of cautious inspection.
Then the unknown had shuffled into the shed and sat down on a heap of matting.
“Gaw!” said a voice.
The tramp’s!
“If ever I struck a left-handed Mascot it was that boy,” said the tramp. “The little swine!”
For the better part of two minutes he went on from this mild beginning to a descriptive elaboration of Bealby. For the first time in his life Bealby learnt how unfavourable was the impression he might leave on a fellow creature’s mind.
“Took even my matches!” cried the tramp, and tried this statement over with variations.
“First that old fool with his syringe!” The tramp’s voice rose in angry protest. “Here’s a chap dying epilepsy on your doorstep and all you can do is to squirt cold water at him! Cold water! Why you might kill a man doing that! And then say you’d thought’d bring ’im ränd! Bring ’im ränd! You be jolly glad I didn’t stash your silly face in. You [misbegotten] old fool! What’s a shilling for wetting a man to ’is skin. Wet through I was. Running inside my shirt,—dripping.... And then the blooming boy clears!