The man beside me ate his own share, and mine to boot,
scraped the pannikins, and looked hungrily for more.
"I met a 'towny,' and he stood me too good a dinner," I explained.
"An' I 'aven't 'ad a bite since yesterday mornin'," he replied.
"How about tobacco?" I asked. "Will the bloke bother with a fellow now?"
"Oh no," he answered me. "No bloomin' fear. This is the easiest spike
goin'. Y'oughto see some of them. Search you to the skin."
The pannikins scraped clean, conversation began to spring up. "This
super'tendent 'ere is always writin' to the papers 'bout us mugs," said
the man on the other side of me.
"What does he say?" I asked.
"Oh, 'e sez we're no good, a lot o' blackguards an' scoundrels as won't
work. Tells all the ole tricks I've bin 'earin' for twenty years an'
w'ich I never seen a mug ever do. Las' thing of 'is I see, 'e was
tellin' 'ow a mug gets out o' the spike, wi' a crust in 'is pockit. An'
w'en 'e sees a nice ole gentleman comin' along the street 'e chucks the
crust into the drain, an' borrows the old gent's stick to poke it out.
An' then the ole gent gi'es 'im a tanner."
A roar of applause greeted the time-honoured yarn, and from somewhere
over in the deeper darkness came another voice, orating angrily:
"Talk o' the country bein' good for tommy [food]; I'd like to see it.
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