“I’m in no hurry,” replied Marmaduke, whose interest and curiosity were more and more excited. “Is there nothing I can do for you? It’s dismal work sitting here all day with a sprained ankle, and having nothing to do; would you care to have some books?” It did not occur to him to ask if he knew how to read; he would as soon have inquired if he knew how to speak.
Baines looked at him with a curious expression.
“I don’t look like a man to lend books to, do I?” he said. “There’s not much in common between books and a rag-and-bone man.”
“Quite as much, I should say, as there is between some men and rags and bones,” retorted Marmaduke, meeting the man’s eyes with a responsive question in his own.
Baines turned away with a short laugh. Perhaps it was mere accident or the force of habit that made him look up at the space over the mantel-piece; but there was something in the deliberate glance that made Marmaduke follow it, and, doing so, he saw a faded but originally good engraving of Shakspere hung in a frame against the wall. Repressing the low whistle which rose involuntarily to his lips, he said, looking at the portrait:
“You have a likeness of Shakspere, I see. Have you read his plays?”
“Ay, and acted them!”
“Acted them! You were originally on the stage, then? I saw at once that you were not what you seem to me,” said Marmaduke, with that frankness that seemed so full of sympathy and was so misleading, though never less so, perhaps, than at this moment. “Would it be disagreeable to you to tell me through what chapters of ill-luck or other vicissitudes you came to be in the position where I now see you?”
The man was silent for a few minutes; whether he was too deeply offended to reply at once, or whether he was glancing over the past which the question evoked, it was impossible to say. Marmaduke fancied he was offended, and, vexed with himself for having questioned him, he stood up, and laying Nelly’s four half-crowns on the chimney-piece, “I beg your pardon if I seemed impertinent; I assure you I did not mean it,” he said. “I felt interested in you, and curious to know something more of you; but I had no right to put questions. Good-morning.” He made a step towards the door, but Baines, rousing himself, arrested him by a sign.
“I am not offended,” he said. “I saw quite well what made you ask it. You would have every right to catechise me if I had come to you for help; as it is, your kindness and your brother’s makes a claim which I am in no mind to dispute. If you don’t mind shivering in this cold place for half an hour, pray sit down, and I will tell you my story. I have not a cigar to offer you,” he added with a laugh, “but perhaps you don’t affect that vice?”