“What ’ave they pinched you for, mate?” said a low growl in his ear.
He had not been conscious that any other living presence was in the dark room, except that nameless something which was lying on the floor. He was so startled that he gave a little shriek.
“Pipe up, cully,” said the low growl in his ear.
The boy’s teeth began to chatter furiously, but they emitted no sounds that were coherent.
“Off his onion!” growled the voice, together with a string of blood-curdling expressions, from which the boy was mercifully delivered comprehension.
Presently the voice growled out of the darkness again.
“Got a chew, cully?”
The faculty of speech was still denied to the boy.
Further blood-curdling expressions followed from the other occupant of the bench, who then relapsed into a morose silence.
The boy grew very cold. He trembled violently; yet his heart had almost seemed to stop beating. The darkness and the silence and the strangeness and the loneliness seemed to grow more intense. His mind would hardly submit to the question of what had happened to him. It refused to revert to his father and the little room. He felt that he was never going to see them again.