During the days that intervened before his next visit, too, he made as careful and full inquiries about Tom as it was possible to do.
The poor fellow had come to Seatown a month before, and very shortly became a familiar loafer on the quays.

No one knew where he came from or why he was in Seatown, unless indeed he expected to be able to conceal himself on some vessel going abroad.

Jim found out the lodging- house where he he had lived, but was unable to hear anything there to throw light on what he had been doing, or whence he had come.

One man said he had found him once down by the water's edge, looking as though he intended to throw himself in--and the man who gave him drink at the public-house remembered him--and the man whom he had assaulted--but that was all.
Wretched enough was the picture it presented of a hopeless, friendless vagabond, weary of life, yet not daring to die, and finding his only solace in deeper degradation.
Tom was walking to and fro in his cell the next time Jim called.

It was almost the first time I had been able to get a view of his face.