"I'm going this way myself," I said, "and if you have no
objections--"
He stood looking at me curiously, indeed suspiciously, through
his round spectacles.
"Have you got the passport?" he asked finally.
"The passport!" I exclaimed, mystified in my turn.
"Yes," said he, "the passport. Let me see your hand."
When I held out my hand he looked at it closely for a moment, and
then took it with a quick warm pressure in one of his, and gave
it a little shake, in a way not quite American.
"You are one of us," said he, "you work."
I thought at first that it was a bit of pleasantry, and I was
about to return it in kind when I saw plainly in his face a look
of solemn intent.
"So," he said, "we shall travel like comrades."
He thrust his scarred hand through my arm, and we walked up the
road side by side, his bulging pockets beating first against his
legs and then against mine, quite impartially.
"I think," said the stranger, "that we shall be arrested at
Kilburn."
"We shall!" I exclaimed with something, I admit, of a shock.
"Yes," he said, "but it is all in the day's work."
"How is that?"
He stopped in the road and faced me. Throwing back his overcoat
he pointed to a small red button on his coat lapel.
"They don't want me in Kilburn," said he, "the mill men are
strikin' there, and the bosses have got armed men on every
corner.
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