_Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and smilingly she eyed me (Dreadful the low cunning of these creechars, don't you think?) "That's all right! The weather's bright. Them bushes there 'ull hide me. Don't the gorse smell nice?" I felt my derned old eyelids blink! "Supper? I've a crust of bread, a big one, and a bottle," (Just as I expected! Ah, these creechars always drink!) "Sugar and water and half a pinch of tea to rinse my throttle, Then I'll curl up cosy!"--"If you're cotched it means the clink!" --"Yus, but don't you think If a star should see me, God 'ull tell that star to wink?" VIII "Now, look here," I says, "I don't know what your blooming age is!" "Three-score years and five," she says, "that's five more years to go _Tick, tack, tick tack_, before I gets my wages!" "Wages all be damned," I says, "there's one thing that I know-- Gals that stay out late o' nights are sure to meet wi' sorrow. Speaking as a toff," I says, "it isn't _comme il faut_! Tell me why you want to get to Piddinghoe to-morrow."-- "That was where my son worked, twenty years ago!"-- "Twenty years ago? Never wrote? May still be there? Remember you?... Just so!" IX Yus, it was a drama; but she weren't my long-lost parent! _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she trotted all the while, Never getting forrarder, and not the least aware on't, Though I stood beside her with a sort of silly smile Stock-still! _Tick, tack_! This blooming world's a bubble: There I stood and stared at it, mile on flowery mile, Chasing o' the sunset,--"Gals are sure to meet wi' trouble Staying out o' nights," I says, once more, and tries to smile, "Come, that ain't your style, Here's a shilling, mother, for to-day I've made my pile!" X Yus, a dozen coppers, all my capital, it fled, sir, Representin' twelve bokays that cost me nothink each, Twelve bokays o' corn-flowers blue that grew beside my bed, sir, That same day, at sunrise, when the sky was like a peach: Easy as a poet's dreams they blossomed round my head, sir, All I had to do was just to lift my hand and reach: So, upon the roaring waves I cast my blooming bread, sir, Bread I'd earned with nose-gays on the bare-foot Brighton beach, Nose-gays _and_ a speech, All about the bright blue eyes they matched on Brighton beach. XI