By this time he had recovered his surprise, and he seemed to be aware that he had let out more than he ought.
“You may be anybody’s friend you like,” he said, brutally, “so long as you don’t come jabbering nonsense here. I don’t know you, and I don’t understand your jokes.”
He turned quickly away from me when he had said the last words. He had never once looked fairly at me since I first spoke to him.
Was it his hand that had struck the blow? I had only sixpence in my pocket, but I took it out and followed him. If it had been a five-pound note I should have done the same in the state I was in then.
“Would a pot of beer help you to understand me?” I said, and offered him the sixpence.
“A pot ain’t no great things,” he answered, taking the sixpence doubtfully.
“It may lead to something better,” I said. His eyes began to twinkle, and he came close to me. Oh, how my legs trembled—how my head swam!
“This is all in a friendly way, is it?” he asked, in a whisper.
I nodded my head. At that moment I could not have spoken for worlds.
“Friendly, of course,” he went on to himself, “or there would have been a policeman in it. She told you, I suppose, that I wasn’t the man?”