Eating this breakfast together they sprawled on the bank of the stream among rushes, with which Abner amused himself by stripping the pith with his nails. His silent and melancholy companion broke the silence by asking him if he had any money. Immediately Abner was suspicious. His second sovereign and all his silver were secreted in his waistcoat pocket. He had placed them there in the night as soon as he realised that he was not sleeping alone. In answer to his friend’s question he produced a handful of coppers. ‘Tenpence ha’penny,’ he said. ‘That won’t go far.’ ‘Houly sufferings!’ said the other, ‘is it carry ten-pence halfpenny three miles?’ He spoke no more, and they set off again. During the rest of the day Mick Connor maintained his attitude of detachment, striding on ahead of Abner as though he had nothing to do with him. They bought a stale loaf in a small market town and the Irishman produced from the treacle tin that he carried three eggs and some rashers of bacon. They lit a fire on the edge of a wood and made a good meal. Toward evening they crossed a wide river flowing silently between high banks. Mick, who appeared to know the country, told Abner that this was the last bridge for twenty miles. Beyond the stream a little town lay smoking under the hill-side. They drank a pint of beer together and pushed on. The evening light seemed to awaken Mick. He became talkative and profane at once, disclosing to Abner the fact that he knew where good work was to be had. He scoffed at the idea of Abner’s working underground while there was a chance of earning his living in the open air. ‘I can put you in the way of a job will make your teeth water,’ he said. At first he kept up an atmosphere of mystery of the kind that particularly pleased him, but when Abner pressed him he disclosed the fact that he had learned from a tramp near Bromsgrove how the corporation of North Bromwich were engaged in relaying a defective piece of piping ten miles long in their Welsh water scheme, and that casual labour was hard to get in those parts. With the combination of his own wit and Abner’s strength they should find a comfortable job to last them for six months. He reckoned that three days’ walking would bring them easily to the site of the work, and gave Abner to understand that he was lucky to have met him. Abner was ready to acknowledge this. ‘That’s all right then,’ said Mick, ‘and now about that tenpence halfpenny. Do you think I’d be after sleeping wud you and not know of the gold sovereign that’s in your waistcoat pocket this moment? It’s on the table the cards should be if we’re travelling together.’