The proprietor of the stall had now none to share his thoughts. He saw Ginger, assured but wary, saunter up to the Sailor as he stood at gaze; saw him touch the young man on the shoulder as if by chance rather than design; saw him speak words which, bend across the counter as he might, he was too far away to catch.
"Lookin' for anything?" were the words that Ginger spoke. Moreover, he spoke them blandly, yet with such a subdued air that he might have been talking in his sleep. The Sailor, whose eyes were far away in the gray mists of the morning, was looking for nothing, it seemed.
"Which way you goin'?" asked Ginger, in the same tone of mild somnambulism.
"Dunno," said the Sailor, his eyes farther away than ever.
"Don't know," repeated Ginger.
At this point, he ventured to look very hard and straight into the face of the Sailor. His knowledge of the human race was pretty considerable for one of his years, and there was something about the wearer of the fur cap that interested him. The face under it was fine-drawn, much tanned by the weather, open as the sky. Ginger then flung an expert's eye over the lean length of blue jersey which surmounted a grotesque pair of leggings.
"You don't know," said Ginger. "Well, suppose you walk as far as the docks?"
The Sailor didn't seem to mind.
"Been long at sea?" inquired Ginger, as with intimate local knowledge he piloted the young man through a series of short cuts.
"Six year."