"
The little man smiled rather queerly.
"That is quite true," he answered calmly. "They hate a liar and
a turn-coat. So do I!"
Brott stopped short upon the pavement.
"If you are going to talk like that to me, Hedley," he said, "the
less you have to say the better."
The man nodded.
"Very well," he said. "What I have to say won't take me very long.
But as I've tramped most of the way up here to say it, you'll have
to listen here or somewhere else. I thought you were always one who
liked the truth."
"So I do!" Brott answered. "Go on!"
The man shuffled along by his side. They were an odd-looking pair,
for Brott was rather a careful man as regards his toilet, and his
companion looked little better than a tramp.
"All my life," he continued, "I've been called 'Mad Hedley,' or
'Hedley, the mad tailor.' Sometimes one and sometimes the other.
It don't matter which. There's truth in, it. I am a bit mad. You,
Mr. Brott, were one of those who understood me a little. I have
brooded a good deal perhaps, and things have got muddled up in my
brain. You know what has been at the bottom of it all.
"I began making speeches when I was a boy. People laughed at me,
but I've set many a one a-thinking. I'm no anarchist, although
people call me one. I'll admit that I admire the men who set the
French Revolution going.
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