“And a bad road, too, sir,” said I.
“That’s the reason I always go armed,” said the unknown, clinking at the same moment something like the barrel of a pistol.
Wondering somewhat at his readiness to mistake my meaning, I felt disposed to drop any further effort to draw him out, and was about to address myself to sleep as comfortably as I could.
“I’ll just trouble ye to lean off that little parcel there, sir,” said he, as he displaced from its position beneath my elbow one of the paper packages the guard had already alluded to.
In complying with this rather gruff demand one of my pocket pistols, which I carried in my breast-pocket, fell out upon his knee, upon which he immediately started, and asked, hurriedly: “And are you armed, too?”
“Why yes,” said I laughingly; “men of my trade seldom go without something of this kind.”
“I was just thinking that same,” said the traveller with a half sigh to himself.
I was just settling myself in my corner when I was startled by a very melancholy groan.
“Are you ill, sir?” said I, in a voice of some anxiety.