"If you was to smile more, Ginger," remarked Bindle presently, "you'd find that life wouldn't 'urt so much. If you can grin you can bear anythink, even Mrs. B., an' she takes a bit o' bearin'."
As the three men trudged up Putney Hill beside the sweating horses, Bindle beamed, Ginger grumbled, and Wilkes coughed. Wilkes was always coughing. Wilkes found expression in his cough. He could cough laughter, scorn, or anger. As he was always coughing, life would otherwise have been intolerable. He was a man of few words, and, as Bindle phrased it, "When Wilkie ain't coughin', 'e's thinkin'; an' as it 'urts 'im to think, 'e coughs."
Ginger was sincere in his endeavour to discover objects he didn't "'old wiv"; marriage, temperance drinks, Mr. Asquith, twins and women were some of the things that Ginger found it impossible to reconcile with the beneficent decrees of Providence.
After a particularly lengthy bout of coughing on the part of Wilkes, Bindle remarked to Ginger, "Wilkie's cough is about the only thing I never 'eard you say you don't 'old wiv, Ginger."
"'E can't 'elp it," was Ginger's reply.
"No more can't women 'elp twins," Bindle responded.
"I don't 'old wiv twins," was Ginger's gloomy reply. He disliked being reminded of the awful moment when he had been informed that he was twice a father in the first year of his marriage.
"It's a good job Gawd don't ask you for advice, Ginger, or 'E'd be up a tree in about two ticks."
Ginger grumbled some sort of reply.
"It's a funny world, Ging," continued Bindle meditatively. "There's you wot ain't 'appy in your 'ome life, an' there's pore ole Wilkie a-coughin' up 'is accounts all day long." After a few moments devoted to puffing contentedly at his pipe, Bindle continued, "Did you ever 'ear, Ginger, 'ow pore ole Wilkie's cough got 'im into trouble?"