rs moving you
on."

"I dropped by the roadside last night and slept where I fell. It's a
wonder I didn't die," the tramp said. The boy looked at him sharply.

"How did you know you didn't?" he said.

"I don't see it," the tramp said, after a pause.

"I tell you," the boy said hoarsely, "people like us can't get away
from this sort of thing if we want to. Always hungry and thirsty and
dog-tired and walking all the while. And yet if anyone offers me a
nice home and work my stomach feels sick. Do I look strong? I know
I'm little for my age, but I've been knocking about like this for six
years, and do you think I'm not dead? I was drowned bathing at
Margate, and I was killed by a gypsy with a spike; he knocked my head
and yet I'm walking along here now, walking to London to walk away
from it again, because I can't help it. Dead! I tell you we can't get
away if we want to."

The boy broke off in a fit of coughing, and the tramp paused while he
recovered.

"You'd better borrow my coat for a bit, Tommy," he said, "your
cough's pretty bad."

"You go to hell!" the boy said fiercely, puffing at his cigarette;
"I'm all right. I was telling you about the road. You haven't got
down to it yet, but you'll find out presently. We're all dead, all of
us who're on it, and we're all tired, yet somehow we can't leave it.
There's nice smells in the summer, dust and hay and the wind smack in
your face on a hot day--and it's nice waking up in the wet grass on a
fine morning. I don't know, I don't know--" he lurched forward
suddenly, and the tramp caught him in his arms.

"I'm sick," the boy whispered--"sick."

The tramp looked up and down the road, but he could see no houses or
any sign of help. Yet even as he supported the boy doubtfully in the
middle of the road a motor car suddenly flashed in the middle
distance, and came smoothly through the snow.

"What's the trouble?" said the driver quietly as he pulled up. "I'm a
doctor." He looked at the boy keenly and listened to his strained
breathing.

"Pneumonia," he commented. "I'll give him a lift to the infirmary,
and you, too, if you like."

The tramp thought of the workhouse and shook his head "I'd rather
walk," he said.

The boy winked faintly as they lifted him into the car.

"I'll meet you beyond Reigate," he murmured to the tramp. "You'll
see." And the car vanished along the white road.

All the morning the tramp splashed through the thawing snow, but at
midday he be