Without waiting for a reply, the small boy (our small boy) swaggered away whistling louder than ever.
Passing along Holborn, he continued his way into Oxford Street, where the print-shop windows proved irresistibly attractive. They seemed also to have the effect of stimulating his intellectual and conceptive faculties, insomuch that he struck out several new, and, to himself, highly entertaining pieces of pleasantry, one of which consisted of asking a taciturn cabman, in the meekest of voices:
“Please, sir, you couldn’t tell me wot’s o’clock, could you?”
The cabman observed a twinkle in the boy’s eye; saw through him; in a metaphorical sense, and treated him with silent contempt.
“Oh, I beg pardon, sir,” continued the small boy, in the same meek tone, as he turned to move humbly away; “I forgot to remember that cabbies don’t carry no watches, no, nor change neither, they’re much too wide awake for that!”
A sudden motion of the taciturn cabman caused the small boy to dart suddenly to the other side of the crowded street, where he resumed his easy independent air, and his interrupted tune.
“Can you direct me to Nottin’ Hill Gate, missus?” he inquired of an applewoman, on reaching the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.
“Straight on as you go, boy,” answered the woman, who was busying herself about her stall.
“Very good indeed,” said the small boy, with a patronising air; “quite correctly answered. You’ve learnt geography, I see.”
“What say?” inquired the woman, who was apparently a little deaf.