shook hands and struck up a sort of friendship.”
“What was that man?” asked my guardian in a new tone of interest.
“Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a baited bull of him,” said Mr. George.
“Was his name Gridley?”
“It was, sir.”
Mr. George directed another succession of quick bright glances at me as my guardian and I exchanged a word or two of surprise at the coincidence, and I therefore explained to him how we knew the name. He made me another of his soldierly bows in acknowledgment of what he called my condescension.
“I don’t know,” he said as he looked at me, “what it is that sets me off again—but—bosh! What’s my head running against!” He passed one of his heavy hands over his crisp dark hair as if to sweep the broken thoughts out of his mind and sat a little forward, with one arm akimbo and the other resting on his leg, looking in a brown study at the ground.