“Yes, what have yer done with yer half-gallon, eh?” asked the Crow derisively. “Someone stole it,” said the sufferer.
“He's been an' blued it,” squealed someone. “Been an' blued it to buy a Sunday veskit with! Oh, ain't he a vicked young man?” And the speaker hid his head under the blankets, in humorous affectation of modesty.
All this time the miserable little cockney—he was a tailor by trade—had been grovelling under the feet of the Crow and his companions.
“Let me h'up, gents” he implored—“let me h'up. I feel as if I should die—I do.”
“Let the gentleman up,” says the humorist in the bunk. “Don't yer see his kerridge is avaitin' to take him to the Hopera?”
The conversation had got a little loud, and, from the topmost bunk on the near side, a bullet head protruded.
“Ain't a cove to get no sleep?” cried a gruff voice. “My blood, if I have to turn out, I'll knock some of your empty heads together.”
It seemed that the speaker was a man of mark, for the noise ceased instantly; and, in the lull which ensued, a shrill scream broke from the wretched tailor.
“Help! they're killing me! Ah-h-h-!”
“Wot's the matter,” roared the silencer of the riot, jumping from his berth, and scattering the Crow and his companions right and left. “Let him be, can't yer?”