It was not a pleasant face to look upon, for it was not over-clean; the black and grey hair was ill-arranged, and the eyes that shone above the flushed cheeks belied the woman sadly if they did not tell the truth about potations. "Why, Bob, my darling," she said, with an exaggerated fawning smile, "and how is my bonny boy?" "Here stow that, mother," cried the lad, struggling from an embrace. "Don't! Can't yer see I've been brushing my hair?" "Yes, and it looks beautiful, ducky. I've been knocking ever so long at the hairy door, and that fine madam saw me, and wouldn't let me in." "No; she says I ain't never to let you in no more." "Not let me in no more to see my own boy?" "No; she says you took some fresh butter last time you was here, and you sha'n't come." "Then you sha'n't stay, Bob; I'll take you away, my darling. Oh, it's a wicked, cruel world!" "Here, I say, mother, stow that. Whatcher want?" "What, my darling? Yes, that's it: want--staring want; but you sha'n't stay here." "Get out. I shall." "No, you sha'n't, you ungrateful boy. I won't be separated from my own child. Bob dear, have you got any money?" "Eh?" "Anybody give you anything?" whined the woman. "There ain't been nothing pass my lips this blessed day." "Oho! what a wunner!" cried the boy. "Why, I can smell yer." "No, no, my dear; that's Mrs Billson as you can smell. I've been talking to her, and she drink 'orrid. Ain'tcher got a few pence for your poor lone mother, who's ready to break her heart sometimes because she's parted from her boy?" "Will you go away if I give you something?" "Go away? Oho!" whined the woman, wiping off a maudlin tear with the end of her shawl. "Here, I say, don't cry on the front-doorsteps. Come down in the hairy, where nobody can't see you." "Driven away by my own boy! Oho, oho!" "'Tain't my fault. Doctor said you wasn't to come, and if you did he'd send me away." "Then come home, Bob, to your poor heartbroken mother." "Walker!" cried the boy. "Why yer ain't got no home to give a chap." "No home?" "Well, I don't call that a home, living up in a hattic along o' old Mother Billson." "Oh, you ungrateful boy! Ain't it enough for me to have come down so that I'm obliged to see my own son in liveries, without him turning against me." "Who's a-turning again you? Don't cry, I tell yer," he said, angrily stamping a foot. "Then you shall come home." "Sha'n't. I ain't going to leave the doctor and Miss Rich for nobody, so there." "Ugh, you viper!" "Here, stow that. Who's a viper? See what they've done for me when I was runned over. Why, if it hadn't been for Miss Rich a-nussing of me when you was allus tipsy, you wouldn't have had no boy at all, only a dead 'un berrid out at Finchley along o' the old man." "Ah, you wicked ungrateful little serpent! They've been setting you again' your poor suffering mother." "Stow that, I say. You'll have the doctor hear you if you don't be quiet."