The man I now faced on that solitary road had all the appearance of a tramp. By the light of the lamp above us I saw that he was clad in a dingy old tweed suit, very much frayed at the cuffs and the trouser-ends, while upon his head was a cap much too large for him, the peak of which was worn over one ear. And this not from any rakishness, but rather, as it seemed, as a sullen protest against the more orderly habits of his fellows. As the game was in his hands for the moment, I left the first move to him.
"Well, strike me pink!" he exclaimed under his breath, as he looked me up and down. "Wot's walkin' to-night—live men or spooks? Jail-bird or gent—w'ich is it?"
"I don't know what you mean," I said lamely. "I know nothing about you——"
"Come orf it!" he exclaimed, with a disgusted shrug. "If you don't know nothink abaht me, wot did yer come back for w'en I 'ollered? W'y—we worked in the same gang!"
"I never saw you in my life before," I said, feeling now that all was up with me.
"Oh, yus, yer did!" he retorted. "You an' me worked in the same gang, an' slep' at night in cells wot was next to each uvver. An' then one day you cut yer lucky, an' they brought you back a dead 'un. 'Ere, ketch 'old of my 'and!"
He stretched out a grimy hand to me as he spoke and quite mechanically I put my own into it. He gripped it for a moment, and then tossed it from him with a laugh.
"You ain't no spook," he said, "an' you ain't no bloomin' twin brother. You won't kid old George Rabbit."
"I don't want to kid anybody," I said. "And I shouldn't think you'd be the sort to go back on a pal. Why, you're free yourself!"
"Yes, in a proper sort o' way," he retorted. "Got my discharge reg'lar, an' a nice little pat on the back w'en I come out fer bein' a good boy. Not that that does yer much good—'cos 'ere I am starving, w'ile the bloke that comes out through the roof, an' cuts his lucky, dresses like a toff, an' smokes a cigar you could smell a mile orf. As fer me, it don't 'ardly run to 'alf a hounce an' a inch of clay."