“Yes, it is wery good of me,” assented the boy, with an air of profound gravity; “I was used to sleep under a damp archway or in a wet cask, now I slumbers in a ’ouse by a fire, under a blankit. Vunce on a time I got wittles any’ow—sometimes didn’t get ’em at all; now I ’ave ’em riglar, as well as good, an’ ’ot. In wot poets call ‘the days gone by’—an’ nights too, let me tell you—I wos kicked an’ cuffed by everybody, an’ ’unted to death by bobbies. Now I’m—let alone! ’Eavenly condition—let alone! sometimes even complimented with such pleasant greetings as ‘Go it, Ginger!’ or ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ Oh yes, granny! I made great sacrifices, I did, w’en I come ’ere to look arter you!”
Mrs Willis smiled, sneezed, and began her gruel. Slidder, who looked at her with deep interest, was called away by a knock at the door. Opening it he beheld a tall footman, with a parcel in his hand.
“Does a Mrs Willis live here?” he asked.
“No,” replied Slidder; “a Mrs Willis don’t live here, but the Mrs Willis—the on’y one vurth speakin’ of—does.”
“Ah!” replied the man, with a smile—for he was an amiable footman—“and I suppose you are young Slidder?”
“I am Mister Slidder, sir! And I would ’ave you remember,” said the urchin, with dignity, “that every Englishman’s ’ouse is his castle, and that neither imperence nor flunkies ’as a right to enter.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the man, with affected surprise, “then I’m afraid this castle can’t be a strong one, or it ain’t well guarded, for ‘Imperence’ got into it somehow when you entered.”
“Good, good!” returned the boy, with the air of a connoisseur; “that’s worthy of the East End. You should ’ave bin one of us.—Now then, old six-foot! wot’s your business?”
“To deliver this parcel.”
“’And it over, then.”