A glimmer of astonished interest lit up the man’s dull eyes. “Whatcher want to know for?”
“That’s my business,” said Quixtus.
The cabman, suddenly awakened, saw the possibility of a fare. He clambered out of the vehicle.
“Cab, sir?” he called across the road.
“Yes,” said Quixtus.
“ ‘Arf a crown?” said the battered man.
“Certainly,” said Quixtus.
“Then I’ll tell yer, guv’nor. I’ve been a bookie’s tout, see? Not a slap-up bookie in the ring—but an outside one—one what did a bit of welshing when he could, see?—and what I say is, that I seed more wickedness there than anywhere else. If you want to see blankety blank wickedness you go on the turf.” He cleared his throat, but his whisper had grown almost inaudible. “I’ve gone and lost my voice,” he said.
Quixtus looked at the drenched, starved, voiceless, unshorn horror of a man standing outcast and dying of want and wickedness in the grey dawn, under the shadow of the central symbols of the pomp and majesty of England.
“You look very ill,” said he.