"Thought as you might not have heard the horn, comrade, and so might get into more trouble. So I thought I'd come over and warn you." All this in a low, hoarse and dogged voice.
"Don't call me comrade. Yes: I heard the horn. You had best hasten or you may get into trouble yourself."
The man received this intimation with a malevolent grin. "Talking big eases the smart, don't it?" and he broke into his yelling laugh.
"Get out of this," said Landless, a dangerous light in his eyes.
The man stopped laughing and began to curse. But he went his way, and Landless, too, after waiting to give him a start, left the hut and turned his steps towards the quarters.
Upon the other side of the creek, sitting beneath a big sweet gum, and whittling away at a piece of stick weed, he found the boy who, the day before, had accused him of feeling as fine as the Lord Mayor of London. He sprang to his feet as Landless approached, and cheerfully remarking that their paths were the same, strode on side by side with him.
"I say," he said presently with ingenuous frankness, "I asks your pardon for what I said to you yesterday. I dessay you make a very good Sec'tary, and Losh! the Lord Mayor himself mightn't have dared to strike that d—d fine Court spark. They say he has fought twenty duels."
"You have my full forgiveness," said Landless, smiling.
"That's right!" cried the other, relieved. "I hates for a man to bear malice."
"I have seen you before yesterday. I forget how they call you."