The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.Weylland, John Matthias
History
The Man with the Book; or, The Bible Among the People.
Weylland, John Matthias
City missions; London City Mission
"You see, master, as how sandwiches never can get on, cos we're a
broke-down lot. Why you should see us afore we starts with our boards,
all a-rubbin' our rheumatisms or a-coughin', so as it is wonderful how
we gets on. But lots of us are respectable though we ain't always
honest, as we get into a public instead of crawling, and there we enjoys
our pipes and talks. Why one on us is a queer old man what had a good
business in the muffin line, and it udd make you stare if you heard the
poetry he makes up, and then you would laugh, and then your eyes would
water like. Well, to-day he brings in a new song all by hisself, and it
all ends with what is called--
"'The man what walks the gutters.'
"And it's a correct account of how we are looked down on, and shows
that none of our old pals will shake our paws, as it's awkward like when
your harms pop out of your side like serampores at the railway; and then
it shows that it's no good to police the men what gets drunk, and fine
'em five shillings, the correct thing being to make 'em sandwiches for a
week with 'vertisements about them teetotal meetings. And then nobs
would mayhaps have to do the boards, which would helewate the
perfession, as all what they does helewates. Howsomever a chap what's a
wagabon offered me his fist, and I kicked his shins; and affor that I
never killed a fly, as my 'art is tender-like. That wagabon ruined us.
My wife was a 'ousemaid, and I was a cabby; and she had twenty-three
sovereigns, and I had ten on 'em. So we made a match, and I took a
stable and borrowed a 'orse, and bought an old cab and did it up, and we
was a-doing first-rate. So that man comes one morning, and says he to
me, 'You're good natured, and if you'll oblige me, I will oblige you;
and I wants to buy a 'orse, and if you'll write across a paper what's a
bill, I'll have the money and will stand treat.' Well, that made me feel
as I was a gent to get money with writing, and I does it; and the treat
I had wasn't no good. Well, three months arter that, a chap comes to my
stable with a paper nearly all print, which said I was to pay that
fifteen pounds I signed on the paper; and I couldn't and I wouldn't, and
I got drunk lots of times, and they hexecuted in the stable, and then I
hadn't a cab; and then I frets, and was werry ill in the hospital; and
then I thought a lot, and says I to myself, says I, 'I ortent to have
writ on that paper, and I ortent to have took to the drink, and I ortent
to have been 'ard with the wife, as I made the trouble. And now I'm a
sandwich I brings her the little bit of money I gets."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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