“We takes our chance.  They won’t press me, sartin sure, ‘cos o’ my tenterhook here, and I’ll keep my weather eye open, trust me for that.”

Here they parted company.  Desmond watched the jolly crew as they turned into the Minories, and heard their rollicking chorus: 

“Ho! when the cargo’s shipped,
An the anchor’s neatly tripped,
An’ the gals are weepin’ bucketfuls o’ sorrer,
Why, there’s the decks to swab,
An’ we en’t a-goin’ to sob,
S’pose the sharks do make a meal of us tomorrer.”

At the Goat and Compasses Diggle was awaiting him.

“Ha! my friend, you did it as prettily as a man could wish.  Solitudo aliquid adjuvat, as Tully somewhere hath it, not foreseeing my case, when solitude would have been my undoing.  I thank thee.”

“Was the fellow attacking you?” asked Desmond.

“That to be sure was his intention.  I was in truth in the very article of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical moment up comes a gallant youth—­subvenisti homini jam perdito—­and with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course.”

“But what was it all about?  Do you know the man?”

“Ods my life! ’twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty passions and tetchy temper.  By the merest accident, at a somewhat crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I apologized in the handsomest way, he must take offense and seek to cut off my life, to extinguish me in primo aevo, as Naso would say.  But Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from Clotho’s shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life unextinguished.”

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draft from classical sources, was intended to quench the ardor of his curiosity.  Diggle’s explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer’s face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street.  And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight occasion.  But, after all, Diggle’s quarrels were his own concern.  That his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune, and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness.  So the boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it.  In agreeing to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harbored a vague hope of falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity, with him.  It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl.  Still, it could not be helped.  Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him as a stranger.