A world of weeping, trodden things,
Poor worms that have not eyes or wings.”
He moved onwards in the direction of the Law Courts. Presently he neared the Waterloo Bridge approach. He had, all unrealized by himself, since he left the restaurant where he had dined, been walking towards the river. A moment or two after, and he was leaning on the parapet of the bridge, looking down into the dark waters. Sluggish, oil-like in appearance, as seen in the dull gleam of the lamps, the river moved seawards. A sudden longing to get out upon those dark waters came to him.
“If only——” he mused. Then, turning briskly, he came face to face with a man in a blue guernsey, who was crossing the bridge. It was the very man of his half-uttered thought. “If only I could run up against Bob Carter!” he had almost said.
“Good evening, Mister Ham’nd.” The man in the guernsey saluted with a thick, tar-stained forefinger as he recognized Tom Hammond.
“Good evening, Carter.” Hammond laughed as he added, “I was just wishing I could meet you, for I felt I should like to get out on the river.”
“I’m jes’ going as fur as Lambeff, sir. Ef yer likes ter go wif me, you’ll do me proud, sir; yer know that, I knows!”
A few minutes later the two men sat in Carter’s boat. Hammond, in the stern, was steering. The man Carter, on the first thwart, manipulated the oars. Hammond had known the man about a year. He had done him a kindness that the waterman had never forgotten.
“Aw’d go to ther world’s end fur yer, sir,” he had often said since.