‘Me poor friend!’ he said once more. ‘You’ve done wrong, but wrong has been done to you. And this little chap, ye think ye’ve found him? Ye think he’s turned out to be this--this noble young fellow here? If ye have an interest in him one way, I’ve got an interest in him in another, for he saved the life of me chyild--of me Edie,’ the actor added, as in the theatre he would have said these touching words, ‘who is the prop of me old age, and the pillar of me house.’ May, who had been roused out of his musings by the question, fell back into them as Montressor prolonged his speech, and now made no reply. The other continued: ‘Me interest in him is strong. I’d save him any trouble, or disturbance, or distress--anything that was to humble him, or to shame him, or to put a stop to him making his way. I’d do that, whatever it might cost me--that I would, for me chyild’s sake.’ ‘Your chyild?’ said May, with an imitation of the actor’s pronunciation, which Montressor scarcely perceived, but which tickled the speaker in the extraordinary lightness of his heart or temper. He laughed, and then took up the conversation, changing his tone. ‘A child’s a strange thing. It’s yourself in a kind of way, and yet it’s nicer than yourself. The naughtier it is, the nicer it is. It’s endless fun. I don’t know,’ he said, with a wave of his hand, ‘what the relationship is when it exists between you and somebody that, so to speak, is as old as yourself.’ ‘Me poor May! but that’s a thing that can’t be.’ ‘Myself, for instance,’ continued the philosopher. ‘I’m father to a child, not to a man. My little chap, if he had lived, would be---- I don’t know,’ he added, after a pause, ‘that I’d be very sorry to hear he had died.’ ‘Hush, May!’ said the other, with an outcry of dismay. ‘I wouldn’t believe ye. Ye can’t mean it, whatever ye may say.’ ‘Why can’t I mean it? My little chap belongs to me, whatever happens. He had always a smile and a kiss for his father; he was never afraid of me; he never looked at me stern, like his mother. Now, if he should happen to have grown into--something like this young fellow here----’ ‘Ye would be a lucky man, not a luckier man in all England: a brave boy of whom any father might be proud.’ ‘Ah!’ said the vagrant, with a long-drawn breath, which ended in a faint laugh, ‘and would he, do you think, be proud of me?’ There was another silence, for Montressor was daunted, and felt once more that even the resources of his profession failed him; and May went on, after the telling interval of that pause.