“I AM WHO I AM”.
“All right, keep yer 'air on, if you've any left! It's the Lawd Chief Justice, mate! 'E says 'e's 'oo 'e are!”
“'Old on! I knows who it is: it's that new-comer, 33. They say he was once a priest—”
But now speech was swallowed up in hubbub, as the van ran battering down a rough street near the station.
Then again Hogarth was whirled into night and space, and, toward morning, after the bumping climb of a van, was bidden to alight on moorland, where he spied, far off, set on a hill, a mighty palace of Romance, all grim, aloof, which was Colmoor.
The next morning while the outdoor gangs were being searched on parade before the exit, Hogarth saw a face which he knew; and “You, Bates”, he said, “I thought you were in Eternity!”
But no: there stood Bates, all capped and arrowed, cropped and neat, not wearing the filthy old scarf of liberty any more.
The neighbor of Hogarth now was a stout man, with black hair, and grey eyes.
He it was who had been—a priest: and in “Black Maria” had given that answer: “I am who I am”.