“Ask me another, James Dodson,” said the siren. “But for whatever reason you want to do it, I know very well it is not love.”
“Well, if it is not love,” said Mr. Dodson, “I don’t know what the name is for it. Here is a chap I have known seven years, who was nothing to me at first, who was not the kind of chap a fellow like me would take up with, who has been found guilty of doing things—not one thing mind you, but two—and although he has been found guilty, I say—and he owns up himself—and he has just been put away for six months’ hard labour—the whole business makes me feel—makes me feel, Chrissie, as though I want to commit a murder.”
“Whatever you do, Jimmy,” said the siren, who was genuinely alarmed, “you must keep off brandy. You are absolutely off the square. I can’t make out what is the matter with you; I should have said you would have been the last chap in the world to let go like this.”
“So should I, old girl,” said Mr. Dodson. “I don’t recognize J. D. in this affair at all. The fact is, J. D. never has recognized himself in his dealings with that poor lunatic. But there has come to be something about that chap that is more to me than my own flesh and blood. If it isn’t love I don’t know what it is; yet why it should be love I don’t know. As you know, old girl, I don’t believe much in religion as a general thing, but it has seemed to me lately that that chap was just a saint in disguise. And now they have taken him from me—put him away in gaol—to hard labour—and he deserves it too—and—and, old girl, it has kind of knocked the bottom out of my little world altogether—and—and I feel that I shall never be able to believe in anything again.”
“Steady, old boy,” said Chrissie with an ample yet robust sympathy. “I don’t like to see you let go.”
“I don’t like it either,” said the philosopher whitely. “But I feel just now that I must either let out a little or go mad. One thing is dead sure; I mustn’t go back to the office at present. If I do I am certain to murder Octavius.”
“Jimmy,” said Chrissie, with matronly reserve from behind the buffet, “if you like to bring that ring back again to-morrow I’ll wear it.”
“You give me something that will put me to sleep,” said the philosopher hoarsely and with wild eyes. “Anything—I don’t care what—as long as it does it soon.”
XXXVII
One misty but pleasant morning of the early autumn, a four-wheeled cab was drawn up against the kerb immediately opposite the portals of a London penitentiary. A wizened and undersized young man with black hair, a short bristling moustache, and his hands in his pockets, stood with his back to this vehicle. Upon his not particularly agreeable countenance was a curious air of expectancy.