"I believe you are right," I said. "And I especially commend you for eating onions; they contain all health; they induce sleep; they may be called the apples of content, or, again, the companion fruits of mankind."
"I have always said," he answered gravely, "that when the couple of them left Eden they hid and took away with them an onion. I am moved in my soul to have known a man who reveres and loves them in the due measure, for such men are rare."
Then he asked, with evident anxiety: "Is there no inn about here where a man like me will be taken in?"
"Yes," I told him. "Down under the Combe at Duncton is a very good inn. Have you money to pay? Will you take some of my money?"
"I will take all you can possibly afford me," he answered in a cheerful, manly fashion. I counted out my money and found I had on me but 3s.7d. "Here is 3s. 7d.," I said.
"Thank you, indeed," he answered, taking the coins and wrapping them in a little rag (for he had no pockets, but only holes).
"I wish," I said with regret, "we might meet and talk more often of many things. So much do we agree, and men like you and me are often lonely."
He shrugged his shoulders and put his head on one side, quizzing at me with his eyes. Then he shook his head decidedly, and said: "No, no—it is certain that we shall never meet again." And thanking me with great fervour, but briefly, he went largely and strongly down the escarpment of the Combe to Duncton and the weald; and I shall never see him again till the Great Day....