“What’s your name, lad?” asked the sailor.
“That depends, old man. If a beak axes me, I’ve got a wariety o’ names, an’ gives ’im the first as comes to ’and. W’en a gen’leman axes me, I’m more partikler—I makes a s’lection.”
“Bein’ neither a beak nor a gentleman, lad, what would you say your name was to me?”
“Tommy Splint,” replied the boy promptly. “Splint, ’cause w’en I was picked up, a small babby, at the work’us door, my left leg was broke, an’ they ’ad to putt it up in splints; Tommy, ’cause they said I was like a he-cat; w’ich was a lie!”
“Is your father alive, Tommy?”
“’Ow should I know? I’ve got no father nor mother—never had none as I knows on; an’ what’s more, I don’t want any. I’m a horphing, I am, an’ I prefers it. Fathers an’ mothers is often wery aggrawatin’; they’re uncommon hard to manage w’en they’re bad, an’ a cause o’ much wexation an’ worry to child’n w’en they’re good; so, on the whole, I think we’re better without ’em. Chimleypot Liz is parent enough for me.”
“And who may chimney-pot Liz be?” asked the sailor with sudden interest.
“H’m!” returned the boy with equally sudden caution and hesitancy. “I didn’t say chimney-pot but chimley-pot Liz. W’at is she? W’y, she’s the ugliest old ooman in this great meetropilis, an’ she’s got the jolliest old ’art in Lun’on. Her skin is wrinkled equal to the ry-nossris at the Zoo—I seed that beast once at a Sunday-school treat—an’ her nose has been tryin’ for some years past to kiss her chin, w’ich it would ’ave managed long ago, too, but for a tooth she’s got in the upper jaw. She’s on’y got one; but, my, that is a fang! so loose that you’d expect it to be blowed out every time she coughs. It’s a reg’lar grinder an’ cutter an’ stabber all in one; an’ the way it works—sometimes in the mouth, sometimes outside the lip, now an’ then straight out like a ship’s bowsprit—is most amazin’; an’ she drives it about like a nigger slave. Gives it no rest. I do declare I wouldn’t be that there fang for ten thousand a year. She’s got two black eyes, too, has old Liz, clear an’ bright as beads—fit to bore holes through you w’en she ain’t pleased; and er nose is ooked—. But, I say, before I tell you more about ’er, I wants to know wot you’ve got to do with ’er? An’ w’at’s your name? I’ve gave you mine. Fair exchange, you know.”
“True, Tommy, that’s only right an’ fair. But I ain’t used to lookin’ up when discoorsin’. Couldn’t you come down here an’ lay alongside?”
“No, old salt, I couldn’t; but you may come up here if you like. You’ll be the better of a rise in the world, won’t you? The gangway lays just round the corner; but mind your sky-scraper for the port’s low. There’s a seat in the winder here. Go ahead; starboard your helm, straight up, then ’ard-a-port, steady, mind your jib-boom, splice the main-brace, heave the main-deck overboard, and cast anchor ’longside o’ me!”