The Mystery of Edwin Drood
‘Mr. Sapsea,’ he answered, looking down, ‘your penetration is so acute,
your glance into the souls of your fellow men is so penetrating, that
if I was hardly enough to deny that my name is Poker, what would it
avail me?’
I don’t know that I had quite exactly made out to a fraction that his
name _was_ Poker, but I daresay I had been pretty near doing it.
‘Well, well,’ said I, trying to put him at his ease by nodding my head
in a soothing way. ‘Your name is Poker, and there is no harm in being
named Poker.’
‘Oh, Mr. Sapsea!’ cried the young man, in a very well-behaved manner.
‘Bless you for those words!’ He then, as if ashamed of having given way
to his feelings, looked down again.
‘Come Poker,’ said I, ‘let me hear more about you. Tell me. Where are
you going to, Poker? and where do you come from?’
‘Ah Mr. Sapsea!’ exclaimed the young man. ‘Disguise from you is
impossible. You know already that I come from somewhere, and am going
somewhere else. If I was to deny it, what would it avail me?’
‘Then don’t deny it,’ was my remark.
‘Or,’ pursued Poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, ‘or if I was to
deny that I came to this town to see and hear you, sir, what would it
avail me? Or if I was to deny—’