“I’ll be getting home-along me own self, now this here lad be meddling with they lights;” remarked Mr. Torp, emptying his glass. “Good night to ’ee all,” he added, taking down his coat and hat from a peg; “and if I’ve exceeded in speech to any gent here”⁠—and he glanced anxiously at Wolf and Mr. Valley⁠—“it be contrary to me nature and contrary to me profession.”

“I⁠ ⁠… suppose⁠ ⁠… you won’t mind⁠ ⁠…” murmured the voice of T. E. Valley, who had remained at the counter, sipping the drink, to which Wolf had treated him, as if it were the first he had tasted that night, “if I come with you? I don’t want to get on anybody’s nerves”⁠—and he looked at Jason Otter, who without being asleep seemed to have drifted off into another world⁠—“but I don’t like that walk alone at night.”