"I was took up for begging," said No. 1. "But I weren't begging—on'y looking for work."
"Where?"
"At King's Cross—me and him," pointing to his neighbour. "We was offering to carry people's bags when the copper come and took us up."
The teacher explained that boys soliciting passengers around the big railway stations were becoming such a nuisance that the police sometimes had to take them into custody.
"We didn't get hold of a man's arm and say, 'Give us threepence,' as the copper said," the youthful informant went on. "We was on'y looking for work."
"How long have you been looking for this kind of work?"
"We goes an' looks for it every day," said No. 2 (in shirt sleeves, like his pal). "And sometimes we makes half a crown, and sometimes three shillings a day, carrying gentlemen's bags. I've been a-doing of it five months. It pays better than reg'lar work, where I used to make ten shillings a week."
No. 1 could not forget his grievance against the police.
"Puts us in the cell all night," he interposed, "and gives us coffee and two thick slices of bread for supper. And takes us in a bumpy ole van to the police court in the morning along of a lot of others. Then we was sent here, where we has to write and read—just like going back to school again."
Another lad was there for "stopping out all night," according to his own rendering. When we asked "Why?" the answer came prompt enough, "'Cos I likes it."