On the strength of it my chum bet me a
thing he knew I wanted, that I couldn't go through my trip under an
assumed name. I bet I could, and would. I bet a thing I want to keep.
That's the silly situation. I hate not telling you my real name, and
signing a cheque for your brother. But I've stuck it out for four weeks,
and the bet has only two more to run. I'm calling myself Jim Wyndham.
It's only my surname I've dropped for the bet. The rest is mine. May I
pay for the picture in cash--and may I come back here, or wherever you
are on the fifteenth day from now, and introduce myself properly?
Or--you've only to speak the word, and I'll throw over the whole
footling business this minute, and----"
I cut in, to say that I _won't_ speak the word, and he mustn't throw the
business over. It is quite amusing I tell him, and I hope he'll win his
bet. As for the picture--he may pay as he chooses. But about the proper
introduction--Heaven knows where I shall be in a fortnight. My brother
loves to make up his mind the night beforehand, _where_ to go next. We
are a pair of tramps.
"You don't do your tramping on foot?"
"Indeed we do! We haven't seen a railway station since our first day out
from Paris. We stop one day in a place we don't care for: three in a
place we like: a week or more in a place we _love_."
"Then at that rate you won't have got far in fifteen days. I know the
direction you've come from by what you've told me, and your brother's
sketches.
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