“I am glad of it,” said Julius.
“You must know that this watch and chain, which but for you I should have lost, were bought for me, in Switzerland, by a son who has since died. They are valuable in themselves, but they are five times as valuable to me because they were a last gift from him.”
“I am glad Ned didn’t get off with ’em,” said Julius.
“You seem to know this man,” said the other, with some curiosity.
“Oh, yes, sir, I know him like a brick.”
The common expression is “like a book”; but that would hardly have implied any close knowledge on the part of Julius, for he knew next to nothing of books.{34} Probably the phrase he did use was suggested by the other.
“Is he a professional pickpocket?”
“Oh, yes, that’s the way he makes a livin’.”
“Then how do you come to know him?”
“Oh, he used to come and see Jack.”