Many travellers only _see_ he _knew_. He had touched the core of the heart of things, and every word he wrote carried conviction to those who read and marvelled at the wonderful knack the fellow had of telling primitive truths cleanly. Strange kept his word and worked without break for six hours on end, then he tumbled off his seat with sudden sleep, having just sense enough to first roll himself in his Ulster. When Tolly arrived next morning at eleven o’clock, the delayed wire in his hand and his hair erect with terror, he found his master snoring in a strong breeze, with the full sun on him, and at least a pound of dried grease all over the fender. Tolly groaned. CHAPTER XVI. TOLLY proceeded in a vague sort of scurry to clear up. But in general confusion of conscience and in his gin-begotten shakiness, he presently dropped the poker with a clatter, and Strange awoke and sat bolt upright in his Ulster. “Well, Tolly, how do you feel?” he demanded blandly, regarding the forlorn, dirty figure with a persistent and contemplative stare that caused it to wriggle and writhe like a worm. Tolly was a very long, thin, crooked person, whether young or old it was impossible to decide, unless you happened to have seen his baptismal register. His mother herself was rather at sea on the question. “He has always looked like that from a baby,” she remarked to the school inspector, when he called one day to round up the urchin, who from his lanky length certainly looked quite meet for Primers. “I don’t believe myself he’s that old but he may be, there ain’t no tellin’, he’s that queer one can’t never say nothin’ certain regardin’ him.” Tolly’s freckles were his great point, they were so many, so parti-coloured and so varied in form; they congregated most on his long thin nose, and tumbled over one another in a way that gave the appendage a scaly look like the tail of a fish. Tolly’s teeth suffered from early decay; he may have had a few back-grinders but all he could boast of in front was one abnormally long fang at the right side, that wobbled frightfully at every word, and when he was nervous from gin wobbled even when he was silent. “If I remember aright,” continued Strange, “you took the pledge the night before I left, you cried too—let alone roared—with remorse.” “Yes, sir, I don’t deny nothin’.” “I’d like to catch you at it! Well, how long did you keep the pledge?” “I believe it were a matter of three weeks, sir, then I cotched cold.”