“Honest Injun, Jimmy,” said William Jordan, with a strange smile in his eyes.
“Give me your hand on it, old boy,” said Jimmy Dodson; “although I am sure you wouldn’t play it low down on an old pal.”
William Jordan yielded to his friend’s importunity.
Dodson shuddered.
“Why, old boy,” he said, “it is so cold—so cold. Ugh, it is like ice.”
William Jordan kissed his friend in the darkness.
“And—and,” cried Dodson, “your lips burn like a fire.”
The two friends walked along in a silence. After they had proceeded a long distance in this fashion through the wet midnight streets, the thin and high-strung tones of Jimmy Dodson were heard again in the darkness.
“Luney,” he said in a voice that seemed to over-tax his powers of utterance, “I always used to wonder what made me take up with a chap like you; but since you came out of prison I have done nothing but wonder what made you take up with a chap like me.”
“You are one of the links in the chain,” said William Jordan, “one of the stages in the journey.”