Mr. Wriford gave him back his fierceness. "Think of some one else! That's what I've done all my life. That's what locked me up and did for me. I've done with all that now, and I'm happy. Think of some one else! God!" cried he and snapped his fingers. "I don't care that for anybody. Whom should I think of?" "Well, try a thought for me," cried Mr. Puddlebox, relenting nothing of his own heat. "I've watched you these four months. I've got you out of trouble. Curse me, I've fed you and handled you like a baby. But for me you'd like be lying dead somewhere." "Well, who cares?" cried Mr. Wriford. "Not me, I don't." "Ah, and you'd liker still be clapped in an asylum and locked there all your days; you'd mind that. But for me that's where you'd be and where you'll go, if I left you to-morrow." Mr. Wriford cried with a black and angry face: "Well, if it's true, who asked you to hang on to me? Why have you done it? If it's true, mind you! For I've done my share. You've admitted that yourself. In the rows we've got into I've done my share, and in the work we've done I've done more than my share, once I've learnt the hang of it. Now then! That's true, isn't it? If you've done so jolly much, why have you? There's one for you. Why?" His violent storming put a new mood to Mr. Puddlebox's face. Not the exasperation with which he had burst out and continued till now. That left him. Not the jolly grin with which commonly he regarded life in general and Mr. Wriford in particular. None of these. A new mood. The mood and hue Mr. Wriford had glimpsed when, looking down from the barrier as Mr. Puddlebox overtook him, and crying down to him: "I thought you'd stopped," he had seen Mr. Puddlebox blink and heard him say: "You're unkind, boy." Now he saw it again--and was again to see it before approaching night gave way to following morn. Mr. Puddlebox blinked and went redly cloudy in the face. "Why?" said he. "Well, I'll tell you why, boy. Because I like you. I liked you, boy, when you came wretched up the Barnet road and thought there was one with you, following you. I liked you then for you were glad of my food and my help and caught at my hand as night fell and held it while you slept. Curse me, I liked you then, for, curse me, you were the first come my way in many years of sin that thought me stronger than himself and that I could be stronger to and could help. I liked you then, boy, and I've liked you more each sun and moon since. I've lost a precious lot in life through being what, curse me, I am. None ever to welcome me, none ever to be glad of me, none ever that minded if I rode by on my legs or went legs first in a coffin cart. Then came you that was loony, that was glad of me here and glad of me there, that asked me this and asked me that, that laughed with me and ate with me and slept with me, that because you was loony was weaker than me. So I liked you, boy; curse me, I loved you, boy. There's why for you."