“The same man.”

“The man is known to me, sir,” returns the trooper, after blowing out a cloud of smoke, and squaring his chest; “and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a — rum customer.” Mr George smokes with a profound meaning after this, and surveys Miss Flite in silence.

“Now, I wish Mr Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared; and to have it in their power to speak with him, if they should desire to do so. Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people, where he would be admitted. Decent people and Jo, Mr George,” says Allan, following the direction of the trooper’s eyes along the entry, “have not been much acquainted, as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood, who would receive him for a while, on my paying for him beforehand?”

As he puts the question, he becomes aware of a dirty-faced little man, standing at the trooper’s elbow, and looking up, with an oddly twisted figure and countenance, into the trooper’s face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper.

“Well, sir,” says Mr George, “I can assure you that I would willingiy be knocked on the head at any time, if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson; and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy, if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop, at a moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service.”

With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr George places the whole building at his visitor’s disposal.

“I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject?”

Allan is quite sure of it.

“Because, sir,” says Mr George, shaking his head sorrowfully, “we have had enough of that.”

His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. “Still, I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan, after repeating his former assurance, “that the boy is deplorably low and reduced; and that he may be — I do not say that he is — too far gone to recover.”

“Do you consider him in present danger, sir?” inquires the trooper.

“Yes, I fear so.”

“Then, sir,” returns the trooper, in a decisive manner, “it appears to me — being naturally in the vagabond way myself — that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!”

Mr Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command; and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought in. He is not one of Mrs Pardiggle’s Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs Jellyby’s lambs, being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him: native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colours! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee.