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“You hear what she says!” Allan says to Joe. “You hear what she says, and I know it’s true. Have you been here ever since?”

“Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone’s till this blessed morning,” replies Jo, hoarsely.

“Why have you come here now?”

Jo looks all around and finally answers, “I don’t know how to do nothink and I can’t get nothink to do. I’m very poor and ill and I thought I’d come back here when there warn’t nobody about and lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willing fur to give me something, he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby, she wos allus a-chivying me–like everybody everywheres.”

“Now, tell me,” proceeds Allan, “tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home?”

Jo suddenly came out of his resignation, and excitedly declares that he never known about the young lady; that he would sooner have hurt his own self, and that he’d sooner have had his unfortnet head chopped off than ever gone a-nigh her; and that she wos wery good to him she wos.

Allan Woodcourt sees that this is not a sham.

“Come, Jo, tell me,” he urged.

“No, I durstn’t,” says Jo. “I durstn’t or I would.”

“But I must know,” returns Allan, “all the same. Come, Jo!”

After two or three such adjurations, Jo lifts up his head again, and says in a low voice, “Well, I’ll tell you something. I was took away. There!”

“Taken away?–In the night?”

Ah! very apprehensive of being overheard, Jo looks about him, and even glances up some ten feet at the top of the boarding, and through the cracks in it, lest the object of his distrust should be looking over, or hidden on the other side.

“Who took you away?”

“I durstn’t name him,” says Jo. “I durstn’t do it, sir.”

“But I want, in the young lady’s name, to know. You may trust me. No one else shall hear.”

“Ah, but I don’t know,” replies Jo, shaking his head fearfully, “as he don’t hear. He’s in all manner of places all at wunst.”

Allan looks at him in perplexity, but discovers some real meaning at the bottom of this bewildering reply. He patiently awaits an explicit answer, and Jo, more baffled by his patience than by anything else, at last desperately whispers a name in his ear.

“Aye,” says Allan. “Why, what had you been doing?”

“Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble ‘cept in not moving on, and the Inkwich. But I’m moving on now. I’m moving on to the berryin’-ground–that’s the move as I’m up to.”

“No, no. We will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?”

“Put me in a horspittle,” replies Jo, whispering, “till I wor discharged, then gave me a little money. ‘Nobody wants you here,’ he ses. ‘You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘You move on,’ he ses. ‘Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you’ll repent it.’ So I shall if ever he does see me, and he’ll see me if I’m above ground,” concludes Jo.

Allan considers a little, then remarks, turning to the woman, “He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one.”

“Thank ‘ee, sir, thank ‘ee!” exclaims Jo. “There, now, see how hard you was on me. But on’y you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it’s all right. For you wos wery good to me, too, and I knows it.”

“Now, Jo,” says Allan, “come with me and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in.”

And Jo, repeating, “On’y you tell the young lady as I never went for to hurt her, and what the genlmn ses,” nods and shambles and shivers and smears and blinks, and half-laughs and half-cries a farewell to the woman, and takes his creeping way after Allan Woodcourt.