'By the way,' I said, 'why did you lie to him?'
'Who, me?' he said. 'What makes you think I lied?'
'You told him you were an unemployed hod carrier. But you told me you were in a highly skilled trade.'
'So I am,' he said. 'But it don't pay to tell everythin' to a copper.'
'So what do you do?' I asked him.
'Ah,' he said slyly. 'That'd be tellin', wouldn't it?'
'Is it something you're ashamed of?'
'Ashamed?' he cried. 'Me, ashamed of my job? I'm about as proud of it as anybody could be in the entire world!'
'Then why won't you tell me?'
'You writers really is nosey parkers, aren't you?' he said. 'And you ain't goin' to be 'appy, I don't think, until you've found out exactly what the answer is?'
'I don't really care one way or the other,' I told him, lying.
He gave me a crafty little ratty look out of the sides of his eyes. 'I think you do care,' he said. 'I can see it on your face that you think I'm in some kind of a very peculiar trade and you're just achin' to know what it is.'
I didn't like the way he read my thoughts. I kept quiet and stared at the road ahead.
'You'd be right, too,' he went on. 'I am in a very peculiar trade. I'm in the queerest peculiar trade of 'em all.'
I waited for him to go on.
'That's why I 'as to be extra careful 'oo I'm talkin' to, you see. 'Ow am I to know, for instance, you're not another copper in plain clothes?'
'Do I look like a copper?'
'No,' he said. 'You don't. And you ain't. Any fool could tell that.'
He took from his pocket a tin of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers and started to roll a cigarette. I was watching him out of the corner of one eye, and the speed with which he performed this rather difficult operation was incredible. The cigarette was rolled and ready in about five seconds. He ran his tongue along the edge of the paper, stuck it down and popped the cigarette between his lips. Then, as if from nowhere, a lighter appeared in his hand. The lighter flamed. The cigarette was lit. The lighter disappeared. It was altogether a remarkable performance.
'I've never seen anyone roll a cigarette as fast as that,' I said.
'Ah,' he said, taking a deep suck of smoke. 'So you noticed.'
'Of course I noticed. It was quite fantastic.'
He sat back and smiled. It pleased him very much that I had noticed how quickly he could roll a cigarette. 'You want to know what makes me able to do it?' he asked.
'Go on then.'
'It's because I've got fantastic fingers. These fingers of mine,' he said, holding up both hands high in front of him, 'are quicker and cleverer than the fingers of the best piano player in the world!'
'Are you a piano player?'
'Don't be daft,' he said. 'Do I look like a piano player?'
I glanced at his fingers. They were so beautifully shaped, so slim and long and elegant, they didn't seem to belong to the rest of him at all. They looked more like the fingers of a brain surgeon or a watchmaker.
'My job,' he went on, 'is a hundred times more difficult than playin' the piano. Any twerp can learn to do that. There's titchy little kids learnin' to play the piano in almost any 'ouse you go into these days. That's right, ain't it?'
'More or less,' I said.