“Yes, ma’am.”
“Where in the world did they expect you to sleep?” asked Mrs Merryboy with some indignation.
“That’s best known to themselves, ma’am,” returned Tim; “p’raps we might ’ave bin allowed to sleep on the Thames, if we’d ’ad a mind to, or on the hatmosphere, but never ’avin’ tried it on, I can’t say.”
“Did you lead the same sort of life, Bob?” asked the farmer, who had by that time appeased his appetite.
“Pretty much so, sir,” replied Bobby, “though I wasn’t quite so ’ard up as Tim, havin’ both a father and mother as well as a ’ome. But they was costly possessions, so I was forced to give ’em up.”
“What! you don’t mean that you forsook them?” said Mr Merryboy with a touch of severity.
“No, sir, but father forsook me and the rest of us, by gettin’ into the Stone Jug—wery much agin’ my earnest advice,—an’ mother an’ sister both thought it was best for me to come out here.”
The two waifs, being thus encouraged, came out with their experiences pretty freely, and made such a number of surprising revelations, that the worthy backwoodsman and his wife were lost in astonishment, to the obvious advantage of old Mrs Merryboy, who, regarding the varying expressions of face around her as the result of a series of excellent jokes, went into a state of chronic laughter of a mild type.
“Have some more bread and butter, and tea, Bob and some more sausage,” said Mrs Merryboy, under a sudden impulse.
Bob declined. Yes, that London street-arab absolutely declined food! So did Tim Lumpy!