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Updated: May 12, 2025
There were half a hundred people about a train was just in and it isn't a difficult matter in London to get a crowd for much less than a man crouching terrified against a wall, looking over his shoulder as Rooum looked, at another man almost as terrified. I felt somebody's hand on my own arm. Evidently somebody thought I'd knocked Rooum down. The terror went slowly from his face.
Myself, I'm certificated twice or three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing.
"Hit him over the head, Hopkins!" Rooum screamed in a high voice. "Run him down cut him up with the wheels down, you! down, I say! Oh, my God!... Ha!" He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'd actually jumped to the right-hand rail.
"Ah, you didn't ... and, of course, you didn't feel anything...." "Come, you're shaking." When presently we came to a brightly lighted public-house or hotel, I saw that he was shaking even worse than I had thought. The shirt-sleeved barman noticed it too, and watched us curiously. I made Rooum sit down, and got him some brandy. "What was the matter?" I asked, as I held the glass to his lips.
You'd think he'd have to get past some way, wouldn't you?... I remember vaguely wondering whether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn't a matter of molecules and osmosis.... One thing, however, was clear; I'd got to tell Rooum what I'd learned: for you can't get hold of a fellow's secrets in ways like that. I lost no time about it.
So Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had become of him. We had knocked off for the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when he came up.
I put a curt question. "Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?" "Ah," he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing so easy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road ... it's as plain as a pikestaff... no, no, no! I shall be telling you something about molecules one of these days!" We walked for a time in silence.
On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort of summer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point that I really can't say just when it was that Rooum put in an appearance again. I think I had heard somebody mention his name, but I'd paid no attention.
Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again came the thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over the gulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. "Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one movement.
It rained that night; rain was the most appropriate weather for the brickfields and sewage-farms and yards of old carts and railway-sleepers we were passing. The rain shone on the black hand-bag that Rooum always carried; and I sucked at the dottle of a pipe that it was too much trouble to fill and light again.
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