“There goes the first pair of gloves as ever I had on, and the last as ever I mean to wear,” he said, spreading out his brawny hands to the sharp night breeze.
Young Thorpe heaved a few last expiring gasps of laughter; then became quiet and serious from sheer exhaustion.
“Go it again,” said the man of the skull-cap, staring at him as gravely as ever, “I like to hear you.”
“I can’t go it again,” answered Zack faintly; “I’m out of breath. I say, old boy, you’re quite a character! Who are you?”
“I ain’t nobody in particular; and I don’t know as I’ve got a single friend to care about who I am, in all England,” replied the other. “Give us your hand, young ‘un! In the foreign parts where I come from, when one man stands by another, as you’ve stood by me to-night, them two are brothers together afterwards. You needn’t be a brother to me, if you don’t like. I mean to be a brother to you, whether you like it or not. My name’s Mat. What’s your’s?”
“Zack,” returned young Thorpe, clapping his new acquaintance on the back with brotherly familiarity already. “You’re a glorious fellow; and I like your way of talking. Where do you come from, Mat? And what do you wear that queer cap under your hat for?”
“I come from America last,” replied Mat, as grave and deliberate as ever. “And I wear this cap because I haven’t got no scalp on my head.”
“What do you mean?” cried Zack, startled into temporary sobriety, and taking his hand off his new friend’s shoulder as quickly as if he had put it on red-hot iron.
“I always mean what I say,” continued Mat; “I’ve got that much good about me, if I haven’t got no more. Me and my scalp parted company years ago. I’m here, on a bridge in London, talking to a young chap of the name of Zack. My scalp’s on the top of a high pole in some Indian village, anywhere you like about the Amazon country. If there’s any puffs of wind going there, like there is here, it’s rattling just now, like a bit of dry parchment; and all my hair’s a flip-flapping about like a horse’s tail, when the flies is in season. I don’t know nothing more about my scalp or my hair than that. If you don’t believe me, just lay hold of my hat, and I’ll show you—”
“No, thank you!” exclaimed Zack, recoiling from the offered hat. “I don’t want to see it. But how the deuce do you manage without a scalp?—I never heard of such a thing before in my life—how is it you’re not dead? eh?”