Old Tom Small was outside his door mending a net when Rodwell approached.
“Hulloa, Tom!” cried the visitor cheerily. “Didn’t expect me—eh?”
“No, sir,” grinned the bronzed, wrinkle-faced old fellow in the tanned smock—tanned in the same tub as his lines and nets. “This is unusual for you to come ’ere at this ’our—isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’ve just come from London,” he explained, as he entered the little sitting-room, which smelt so strongly of stale fish and rank tobacco. “Where’s Ted?”
“’E’s gone along to Skegness to get me some tackle. ’E only started ’arf an ’our ago.”
“Well,” asked Rodwell, throwing off his coat and cap, and flinging himself upon the old wooden armchair. “Anything happened since I was here last week?”
“Not much—only that there Judd, the coastguard from Chapel Point, seems to be always a passin’ or comin’ in to smoke—as though he suspects summat.”
“Ah! you’re getting nervy again, Tom, I see,” laughed Rodwell. “What the dickens can he suspect if he doesn’t see me, and you and Ted are both discreet and keep still tongues! Why, there’s no more respectable fisherman along the whole coast here than Tom Small,” he added.
“Well, sir,” replied the old fellow, “I’ve tried to keep respectable always, till now. And I wouldn’t ha’ done this dirty work—no, not for a fortune, had I known what was intended.”
“No, I don’t really suppose you would,” remarked Rodwell with quiet sarcasm. “But, having begun, you’ve got to go on—or else be shot, both of you, as traitors to your country. Nevertheless, don’t let’s discuss that: it serves no purpose. I must get to work. Is the line all in order?”