“Yes. Millions of miles.”
“They can't come after yer? Can't fetch yer back again?”
“No, never.”
The doorstep that we occupied was the last. A yard beyond began the black waste of mud. From the other end of the street, now growing dark, he never took his staring eyes for an instant.
“Ever seen a stiff 'un—a dead 'un?”
“No.”
“I 'ave—stuck a pin into 'im. 'E never felt it. Don't feel anything when yer dead, do yer?”
All the while he kept swaying his body to and fro, twisting his arms and legs, and making faces. Comical figures made of ginger-bread, with quaintly curved limbs and grinning features, were to be bought then in bakers' shops: he made me hungry, reminding me of such.
“Of course not. When you are dead you're not there, you know. Our bodies are but senseless clay.” I was glad I remembered that line. I tried to think of the next one, which was about food for worms; but it evaded me.
“I like you,” he said; and making a fist, he gave me a punch in the chest. It was the token of palship among the youth of that neighbourhood, and gravely I returned it, meaning it, for friendship with children is an affair of the instant, or not at all, and I knew him for my first chum.