"Will you shut up, d----n you?" said the dutiful son, who was fast losing his temper at being interrupted so often by his fond parent. "I wos away at sea down on a Cardiff coaster, when the old man came home, and the gal, there, Molly, was a lace-maker, and wos making eight shillings a week, and the old woman used to make penny baskets to carry fish home from the markets, and she got, I suppose, as much as--how much did you make on them ere baskets, mother?" "Two and sevenpence ha'penny a week, Jem, and some of the stuff wos rotten has an egg, Jem, and I halways had bad hies, Jem--you know I had--a-crying for you when you wos a blessed baby." "There, stop that bell-clapper of yours, will ye? Yez are all crazy, I think. Well, the short and the long of it wos, that the old man came home and began to drink everything that he could put his hands on, and Molly lost her place because the old un _would_ come haround her place of business, in Tottenham Court road, and her hemployer as was said as 'ow he's blessed if he'd stand hit hany longer, 'aving such a drunken old bloke a-comin around his shop; and then the gal took to the street, and she got two months in the Bridewell for wagrancy, and when she came hout she was wuss nor ever, and then the family got put hout cos' they could not pay the rent in Saffron Hill, four bob and a tanner a week; and it all comes of that hold man a-drinking like a swine that we are here to-night hunder London Bridge." "How _can_ you tell sich voppers, Jem, about yer poor old fayther? Ven you was about two hinches 'igh I used to dandle ye hon me knee, and now look at yer hingratitude to the hauthor of your beink." [Sidenote: TWENTY-FIVE HUNDRED CADGERS.] "Guv us a taty, Jenny," said the son to the little girl, who was now engaged in pulling three or four from the dying embers of the fire; and he snatched one and tore a piece out of it eagerly, hot ashes and all. Just then a low steamer went past, with her red signal light shining like a huge glow-worm out upon the surface of the dark river, and as she went under the bridge her whistle shrieked out on the night air like a demon, and at the same moment the bell of St. Saviour's in Southwark, on the Surrey side of the river, tolled in a brazen tone the hour of one o'clock, and Sergeant Scott suggested to me that we might as well go about our business and leave the Cadgers to themselves. "Cadger" is a Cockney term for people who will not work and have no habitation, but go from one place to another, roaming loosely, picking up anything they can get, honestly if they can get it that way, and if not they will not hesitate to steal for a living, or beg when they find people charitable enough and willing to commiserate their supposed sufferings. There are about 2,500 of this class in and around London, continually changing their places of residence, and to this class the hopeful family under London Bridge belonged. [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. THE LUNGS OF LONDON.