“I suppose we’re wrong ‘uns,” said he. “At least I am. I own up.”
Vandermeer said bitterly: “When a man is hunted by poverty he can’t run straight, for at the end of the straight path is death.”
“And you, Huckaby?”
“I also have bolted into a drain or two in my time.”
“Good,” said Quixtus. “Now we understand one another.”
“You may understand us,” said Huckaby, tugging at his untidy beard, “but I’m hanged, drawn, and quartered if we understand you.”
“I thought I had made myself particularly clear,” said Quixtus.
“For my part,” said Billiter, “I can’t make out what you’re getting at except to make us confess that we’re wrong ‘uns.”
“Dear, dear,” said Quixtus.
“I can’t understand it,” said Vandermeer, looking intently at him across the table out of his little sharp eyes. “I can’t understand it, unless it is that you have some big scoop on and want us to come into it, so as to do the dirty work. If that’s so I’m on, so long as it’s safe. But I’ve steered clear of the law up to now and have no desire to run the risk of penal servitude.”