"If you ain't got tins an' cookin' things, all as you can get'll be bread
and cheese. No bloomin' good that! You must 'ave 'ot tea, an'
wegetables, an' a bit o' meat, now an' again, if you're goin' to do work
as is work. Cawn't do it on cold wittles. Tell you wot you do, lad. Run
around in the mornin' an' look in the dust pans. You'll find plenty o'
tins to cook in. Fine tins, wonderful good some o' them. Me an' the ole
woman got ours that way." (He pointed at the bundle she held, while she
nodded proudly, beaming on me with good-nature and consciousness of
success and prosperity.) "This overcoat is as good as a blanket," he
went on, advancing the skirt of it that I might feel its thickness. "An'
'oo knows, I may find a blanket before long."
Again the old woman nodded and beamed, this time with the dead certainty
that he _would_ find a blanket before long.
"I call it a 'oliday, 'oppin'," he concluded rapturously. "A tidy way o'
gettin' two or three pounds together an' fixin' up for winter. The only
thing I don't like"--and here was the rift within the lute--"is paddin'
the 'oof down there."
It was plain the years were telling on this energetic pair, and while
they enjoyed the quick work with the fingers, "paddin' the 'oof," which
is walking, was beginning to bear heavily upon them.
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