Mat made no answer. He suddenly slackened; then, as suddenly, increased his pace; dragging young Thorpe with him at a headlong rate.
“You’re sure to find somebody,” continued Zack, in his offhand, familiar way. “I don’t know—gently! we’re not walking for a wager—I don’t know whether you’re married or not?” (Mat still made no answer, and walked faster than ever.) “But if you havn’t got wife or child, every fellow’s got a father and mother, you know; and most fellows have got brothers or sisters—”
“Good night,” said Mat, stopping short, and abruptly holding out his hand.
“Why! what’s the matter now?” asked Zack, in astonishment. “What do you want to part company for already? We are not near the end of the streets yet. Have I said anything that’s offended you?”
“No, you havn’t. You can come and talk to me if you like, the day after to-morrow. I shall be back then, whatever happens. I said I’d be like a brother to you; and that means, in my lingo, doing anything you ask. Come and smoke a pipe along with me, as soon as I’m back again. Do you know Kirk Street? It’s nigh on the Market. Do you know a ‘bacco shop in Kirk Street? It’s got a green door, and Fourteen written on it in yaller paint. When I am shut up in a room of my own, which isn’t often, I’m shut up there. I can’t give you the key of the house, because I want it myself.”
“Kirk Street? That’s my way. Why can’t we go on together? What do you want to say good-night here for?”
“Because I want to be left by myself. It’s not your fault; but you’ve set me thinking of something that don’t make me easy in my mind. I’ve led a lonesome life of it, young ‘un; straying away months and months out in the wilderness, without a human being to speak to, I dare say that wasn’t a right sort of life for a man to take up with; but I did take up with it; and I can’t get over liking it sometimes still. When I’m not easy in my mind, I want to be left lonesome as I used to be. I want it now. Good night.”
Before Zack could enter his new friend’s address in his pocket-book, Mat had crossed the road, and had disappeared in the dark distance dotted with gaslights. In another moment, the last thump of his steady footstep died away on the pavement, in the morning stillness of the street.
“That’s rather an odd fellow”—thought Zack as he pursued his own road—“and we have got acquainted with each other in rather an odd way. I shall certainly go and see him though, on Thursday; something may come of it, one of these days.”
Zack was a careless guesser; but, in this case, he guessed right. Something did come of it.