The following is the statement he gave me:—
“Whistling Billy.
That’s my name, and I’m known all round about in the Borough as ‘Whistling Billy,’ though some, to be sure, calls me ‘Whistling Bill,’ but in general I’m ‘Billy.’ I’m not looking very respectable now, but you should see me when I’m going to the play; I looks so uncommon respectable, nobody knows me again. I shall go to the theatre next week, and I should just like you to see me. It’s surprising.
“I ain’t a very fat chap, am I? but I’m just meaty enough for my perfession, which is whistling and dancing in public-houses, where I gives ’em the hornpipe and the bandy jig, that’s dancing with my toes turned in.
“My father was a barber. He only charged a penny for shaving, but he wouldn’t cut your hair under twopence, and he used to do well—very well sometimes; I don’t know whether he’s alive now, for I ain’t seen him these ten years, nor asked him for a halfpenny. Mother was alive when I left, and so was my two brothers. I don’t know whether they’re alive now. No, I don’t want to go and see him, for I can get my own living. He used to keep a shop near Fitzroy-square.
“I was always fond of dancing, and I runned away from home for to follow it. I don’t know my own age exactly: I was as tall then as I am now. I was twelve when I left home, and it must be ten years ago, but I ain’t twenty-two: oh, dear no! Why, I ain’t got no whiskers nor things. I drink such a lot of beer and stuff, that I can’t grow no taller; gentlemen at the public-houses gives it me. Why, this morning I was near tipsy, dancing to some coalheavers, who gave me drink.
“I used, when I was at father’s, to go to a ball, and that’s where I learned to dance. It was a shilling ball in the New-road, where there was ladies, regular nice ones, beautifully dressed. They used to see me dancing, and say, when I growed up I should make a beautiful dancer; and so I do, for I’d dance against anybody, and play the whistle all the time. The ladies at these balls would give me money then for dancing before them. Ah! I’d get my entrance shilling back, and four or five into the bargain. I’d generally take it home to mother, after buying a little sweet-stuff, or such-like, and I think that’s why mother would let me go, ’cos I picked up a good bit of money.
“It was another boy that put me up to running away from home. He axed me to go along with him, and I went. I dare say it troubled father a bit when he found I’d gone. I ain’t troubled him for ten years now. If I was to go back to him, he’d only send me to work, and I make a better living by myself. I don’t like work, and, to tell you the truth, I never did work, for it’s like amusement to me to dance; and it must be an amusement, ’cos it amuses the people, and that’s why I gets on so well.
“When I hooked it with that chap, we went to Croydon, in Surrey. We went to a lodging-house where there was men and women, and boys and chaps, and all like that; we all slept in one room. I had no money with me, only my clothes; there was a very nice velvet cap; and I looked very different then to what I do now. This young chap had some tin, and he kept me. I don’t know how he earned his tin, for he’d only go out at night time, and then he’d come home and bring in money, and meat and bread, and such-like. He said to me, before I went pals with him, that he’d keep me, and that he’d make plenty of money. He told me he wanted a chum to mate with, so I went with him right off. I can’t say what he was. He was about thirteen or fourteen, and I never seed him do no work. He might have been a prig for all I knows.
“After I’d been in the lodging-house, this chap bought a stock of combs and cheap jewels, and then we went out together, and he’d knock at the houses and offer the things for sale, and I’d stand by. There’s a lot of gentlemen’s houses, if you recollect, sir, round Croydon, on the London road. Sometimes the servants would give us grub instead of money. We had plenty to eat. Now you comes to speak of it, I do remember he used to bring back some old silver with him, such as old tablespoons or ladles, broke up into bits, and he’d make a deal selling them. I think he must have been a prig. At night we used to go to the public-houses and dance. He never danced, but sit down and looked on. He said he was my relation, and I always shared my drink with him, and the people would say, ‘Feed me, feed my dog,’ seeing me going halves with him.