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?"
I nodded my head again. It was all I could do to keep myself
standing upright.
"I suppose it's a case of threatening to have him up, and make
him settle it quietly for a pound or two? How much for me if you
lay hold of him?"
"Half."
I began to be afraid that he would suspect something if I was
still silent.
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