s all this about?" I demanded, roughly enough.

"It's all right ... it's all right,..." he stammered.

"Heavens, man, you shouldn't play tricks like that!"

"No ... no ... but for the love of God don't do it again!..."

"We'll not explain here," I said, still in a good deal of a huff; and
the small crowd melted away--disappointed, I dare say, that it wasn't
a fight.

"Now," I said, when we were outside in the crowded street, "you might let
me know what all this is about, and what it is that for the love of
God I'm not to do again."

He was half apologetic, but at the same time half blustering, as if I had
committed some sort of an outrage.

"A senseless thing like that!" he mumbled to himself. "But there: you
didn't know.... You _don't_ know, do you?... I tell you, d'you hear,
_you're not to run at all when I'm about_! You're a nice fellow and all
that, and get your quantities somewhere near right, if you do go a long
way round to do it--but I'll not answer for myself if you run, d'you
hear?... Putting your hand on a man's shoulder like that, just when ..."

"Certainly I might have spoken," I agreed, a little stiffly.

"Of course, you ought to have spoken! Just you see you don't do it again.
It's monstrous!"

I put a curt question.

"Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?"

"Ah," he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing so
easy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road ... it's as
plain as a pikestaff... no, no, no! _I_ shall be telling _you_ something
about molecules one of these days!"

We walked for a time in silence.

Suddenly he asked: "What are you doing now?"

"I myself, do you mean? Oh, the firm. A railway job, past Pinner.
But we've a big contract coming on in the West End soon they might
want you for. They call it 'alterations,' but it's one of these big
shop-rebuildings."

"I'll come along."

"Oh, it isn't for a month or two yet."

"I don't mean that. I mean I'll come along to Pinner with you now,
to-night, or whenever you go."

"Oh!" I said.

I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, the
company of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you in
for next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't say
anything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-mile
walk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse
(which was my own programme), he was welcome. We w