"Wot's 'e done?" enquired Scratcher.
"I offered to fight 'im for the tips, an' all 'e did was to turn on 'is rattle;" and Bindle winked at the girl-conductor, who clanged the train-gates behind him.
For nearly a week Bindle continued to work thirteen hours a day, satisfying the hunger of others and quenching alien thirsts. Thanks to judicious hints from Scratcher, at the same time he found means of ministering to his own requirements. He tasted new and strange foods; but of all his discoveries in the realm of dietetics, curried prawns held pride of place. More than one customer looked anxiously into the dark brown liquid, curious as to what had become of the blunt-pointed crescents; but, disliking the fuss attending complaint, he ascribed the reduction in their number to the activities of the Food Controller.
When, as occasionally happened in the absence of his chief, Bindle came into direct contact with a customer and received an order, he invariably found himself utterly at a loss.
"Bouillabaisse de Marseilles, pommes sautées," called out one customer. Bindle, who was hurrying past, came to a dead stop and regarded him with interest.
"D'you mind sayin' that again, sir," he remarked.
"Bouillabaisse de Marseilles, pommes sautées," repeated the customer.
"Well, I'm blowed!" was Bindle's comment.
The customer stared, but before he had time to reply Bindle was unceremoniously pushed aside by Giuseppi Antonio Tolmenicino, who, pad in hand, bent over the customer with servile intentness.
"Wot did 'e mean? Was 'e tellin' me 'is name?" enquired Bindle of a lath-like youth, with frizzy hair and a face incapable of expressing anything beyond a meaningless grin. It was Scratcher, however, who told the puzzled Bindle that the customer had been ordering lunch and not divulging his identity.