I
jest came up from Dover, an' blessed little tommy I got. They won't gi'
ye a drink o' water, they won't, much less tommy."
"There's mugs never go out of Kent," spoke a second voice, "they live
bloomin' fat all along."
"I come through Kent," went on the first voice, still more angrily, "an'
Gawd blimey if I see any tommy. An' I always notices as the blokes as
talks about 'ow much they can get, w'en they're in the spike can eat my
share o' skilly as well as their bleedin' own."
"There's chaps in London," said a man across the table from me, "that get
all the tommy they want, an' they never think o' goin' to the country.
Stay in London the year 'round. Nor do they think of lookin' for a kip
[place to sleep], till nine or ten o'clock at night."
A general chorus verified this statement
"But they're bloomin' clever, them chaps," said an admiring voice.
"Course they are," said another voice. "But it's not the likes of me an'
you can do it. You got to be born to it, I say. Them chaps 'ave ben
openin' cabs an' sellin' papers since the day they was born, an' their
fathers an' mothers before 'em. It's all in the trainin', I say, an' the
likes of me an' you 'ud starve at it.
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