“You don’t mean for to say, Robin, that the ladies ever holds you by the button-’oles?”
“No, I don’t; but I holds them wi’ the buttons. This is the way of it. W’en I chance to see a wery pretty lady—not one o’ your beauties, you know; I don’t care a dump for them stuck-up creatures! but one o’ your sweet, amiable sort, with souls above buttons, an’ faces one likes to look at and to kiss w’en you’ve a right to; vell, w’en I sees one o’ these I brushes up again’ ’er, an’ ’ooks on with my buttons to some of ’er togs.
“If she takes it ill, looks cross, and ’alf inclined to use strong language, I makes a ’umble apology, an’ gets undone as fast as possible, but if she larfs, and says, ‘Stoopid boy; w’y don’t you look before you?’ or suthin o’ that sort, I just ’ooks on another tag to another button w’en we’re a fumblin’ at the first one, and so goes on till we get to be quite sociable over it—I might almost say confidential. Once or twice I’ve been the victim of misjudgment, and got a heavy slap on the face from angelic hands that ought to ’ave known better, but on the ’ole I’m willin’ to take my chance.”
“Not a bad notion,” remarked the Slogger; “especially for a pretty little chap like you, Robin.”
“Right you are,” replied the other, “but you needn’t try on the dodge yourself, for it would never pay with a big ugly grampus like you, Villum.”
Having thus run into a pleasant little chat, the two waifs proceeded to compare notes, in the course of which comparison the Slogger gave an outline of his recent history. He had been engaged in several successful burglaries, but had been caught in the act of pocket-picking, for which offence he had spent some weeks in prison. While there a visitor had spoken to him very earnestly, and advised him to try an honest life, as being, to say the least of it, easier work than thieving. He had made the attempt. Through the influence of the same prison-visitor he had obtained a situation, from which he had been advanced to the responsible position which he then held.
“And, d’you know, Robin,” said the Slogger, “I find that honesty pays pretty well, and I means to stick to it.”
“An’ I suppose,” said Robin, “if it didn’t pay pretty well you’d cut it?”
“Of course I would,” returned the Slogger, with a look of surprise; “wot’s the use o’ stickin’ to a thing that don’t pay?”
“Vell, if them’s your principles you ain’t got much to ’old on by, my tulip,” said Robin.