Aston, the older brother, is the most neutral character being Davies" benefactor in the beginning, but eventually abandoning him after gradually growing indifference.
In the beginning Davies is shown to be a person in need whom Aston has taken under his wing, giving him a shelter for the night, tobacco and even some money. Davies talks plenty about himself, pretending to really be somehow better than he seems, and therefore deserving to be treated with respect and given a helping hand. He seems quite normal and amicable, like a common old man, who is a little bitter because his pride has been hurt. He soon starts to seem a bit weird, since he does not seem to regard what Aston says at all, unless it concerns himself and starts asking an awful lot of questions as soon as he has been offered a roof over his head. Moreover, the minute he is left alone in the room, he starts to search through Aston's things. No later than this, it becomes evident that Davies is not just an innocent old man, who has been mistreated, and with this untrustworthy, even apalling behaviour he shows such ungratitude and self-evidently negative characteristics that no longer can he purely be indentified with. .
Mick's behaviour strikes as weird and unpredictable from the very beginning as he sneaks out of the room, when he hears voices approaching. Next time that he appears he attacks Davies, who is searching the room, from behind demonstrating his physical superiority over an old threadbare vagrant. Mick makes it clear who is in charge. He instantly sees Davies as his inferior, and thus an easy target for bullying, almost as a prey to a predator. This is implied when he first only watches Davies, then creeps silently behind him and attacks. Once he thinks his thrashing has scared Davies enough, he proceeds to a different kind of violence: verbal abuse. At this point, laughter comes into the picture, as his repeated questions, comments and stories of people whom he thinks Davies resembles seem comical.
