I
was prepared to pilot him--but I could hardly do so without knowing
towards which point of the compass he proposed to steer, or rather, to
be steered. "I know w'ere I wanter go," was all I could get out of him.
Very well; if he knew his address, it was no concern of mine; he could
lead on; I would act as a mere supporter. In this capacity, with my arm
linked firmly in his, I brought him forth from the tunnel to the street
(he had no wish, it seemed, to go through the tunnel into the court),
and here we bade farewell to the ladies.
"Which way now?" I inquired. My charge responded not, but crossed to a
corner and meandered up one of those interminable thoroughfares which
lead out of London into the suburbs. Trudging with him and helping him
to sustain his balance, which was not as stable as could be wished, I
plied him with mildly genial conversation and at last elicited a few
vague answers. These were couched in the cockney idiom, but I caught a
faint nasal twang which led me to suspect that the speaker had come from
the other side of the Atlantic. Yes--he told me he had just arrived from
Canada.
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