"But just a word, my friend," he insists.
"Save your breath," says I, "and have it redistilled. It's worth it."
"Thanks," he puffs out as he shuffles along at my elbow; "but—but wasn't that Bob Ellins you were just talking to?"
"Eh?" says I, glancin' at him some astonished; for a seedier specimen you couldn't find up and down the avenue. "What do you know about him, if it was?"
"More than his name," says the wreck. "He—he's an old friend of mine."
"Oh, of course," says I. "Anyone could tell that at a glimpse. I expect you used to belong to the same club too?"
"Is old Barney still on the door?" says he.
And, say, he had the right dope on that. Not three minutes before I'd heard Mr. Robert call the old gink by name. But that hardly proved the case.
"Clever work," says I. "What was it you used to do there, take out the ashes."
"I don't wonder you think so," says he; "but it's a fact that Bob and I are old friends."