I
happened to be passing there on my way from the East End where I had
spent my day about the Docks with an old chum who was looking after the
fitting out of a new ship. I am always eager, when allowed, to call on a
new ship. They interest me like charming young persons.
I got mixed up in that crowd seething with an animosity as senseless as
things of the street always are, and it was while I was laboriously
making my way out of it that the pressman of whom I spoke was jostled
against me. He did me the justice to be surprised. "What? You here!
The last person in the world . . . If I had known I could have got you
inside. Plenty of room. Interest been over for the last three days. Got
seven years. Well, I am glad."
"Why are you glad? Because he's got seven years?" I asked, greatly
incommoded by the pressure of a hulking fellow who was remarking to some
of his equally oppressive friends that the "beggar ought to have been
poleaxed." I don't know whether he had ever confided his savings to de
Barral but if so, judging from his appearance, they must have been the
proceeds of some successful burglary.
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