Log. (To Jerry). Your most obedient, sir; happy to see you. Where did you pick him up? (To Tom).
Tom. A slip from the chawbacons; rescued him from yokels. The business is this; bred up in Somersetshire. Jerry has never before crossed Claverton Downs. He is now come to see life, and rub off a little of the rust. In effecting this desirable consummation you can materially assist; under so skilful a professor of the flash as you, Bob—
Jerry. Flash! I’m at fault again, Tom.
Tom. Explain, Bob.
Log. Flash, my young friend, or slang as others call it, is the classical language of the Holy Land; in other words, St. Giles’s Greek.
Jerry. St. Giles’s Greek; that is a language, doctor, with which I am totally unacquainted, although I was brought up at a Grammar School.
Log. You are not particular in that respect; many great scholars, and better linguists than you, are quite as ignorant of it, it being studied more in the Hammer Schools than the Grammar Schools. Flash, my young friend, or slang, as others call it, is a species of cant in which the knowing ones conceal their roguery from the flats; and it is one of the advantages of seeing Life in London, that you may learn to talk to a rogue in his own language, and fight him with his own weapons.
Tom. I was telling him before you came in, Bob, that he must go in training for a swell, and he didn’t understand what I meant.
Jerry. Oh, yes, I did, Tom.
Tom. No, no, you didn’t; come, confess your ignorance.