They reached the van.  Barney Bill, surprisingly agile in spite of his twisted leg, sprang into the interior.  Paul, standing between the shafts, looked in with curiosity.  There was a rough though not unclean bed running down one side.  Beyond, at the stern, so to speak, was a kind of galley containing cooking stove, kettle and pot.  There were shelves, some filled with stock-in-trade, others with miscellaneous things, the nature of which he could not distinguish in the gloom.  Barney Bill presently turned and dumped an armful of books on the footboard an inch or two below Paul’s nose.  Paul scanned the title pages.  They were:  Goldsmith’s “Animated Nature,” “Enquire Within Upon Everything,” an old bound volume of “Cassell’s Family Reader,” “The Remains of Henry Kirke White,” and “Martin Chuzzlewit.”  The owner looked down upon them proudly.

“I’ve got some more, but I can’t get at ’em.”

Paul regarded him with envy.  This was a man of great possessions.  “How long are yo’ going to stay here?” he asked hopefully.

“Till sunrise to-morrow.”

Paul’s face fell.  He seemed to have no luck nowadays.

Barney Bill let himself down to a sitting position on the footboard and reached to the end for a huge pork pie and a clasp knife which lay beside a tin can.  “I’ll go on with my supper,” said he; then noticing a wistful, hungry look in the child’s eyes, “Have a bit?” he asked.

He cut off a mighty hunk and put it into Paul’s ready hand.  Paul perched himself beside him, and they both ate for a long while in silence, dangling their legs.  Now and again the host passed the tin of tea to wash down the food.  The flaming dragon died into a smoky red above the town.  A light or two already appeared in the fringe of mean houses.  Twilight fell rapidly.

“Oughtn’t you to be getting home?”

Paul, his hunger appeased, grinned.  His idea was to sneak into the scullery just after the public-houses closed, when his mother would be far too much occupied with Mr. Button to worry about him.  Chastisement would then be postponed till the morning.  Artlessly he laid the situation before his friend, who led him on to relate other amenities of his domestic life.

“Well, I’m jiggered!” said Barney Bill.  “She must be a she-devil!”

Paul cordially agreed.  He had already imagined the Prince of Darkness in the guise of Mr. Button; Mrs. Button was in every way fit to be the latter’s diabolical mate.  Encouraged by sympathy and shrewd questions, he sketched in broad detail his short career, glorifying himself as the prize scholar and the erstwhile Grand Llama of Budge Street, and drawing a dismal picture of the factory.  Barney Bill listened comprehendingly.  Then, smoking a well-blackened clay, he began to utter maledictions on the suffocating life in towns and to extol his own manner of living.  Having an appreciative audience, he grew eloquent over his lonely wanderings the length and breadth of the land; over the joy of country things, the sweetness of the fields, the wayside flowers, the vaulted highways in the leafy summer, the quiet, sleepy towns, the fragrant villages, the peace and cleanness of the open air.