"Driver!" exclaimed the old gentleman whom Stacey-Lumpton had grabbed, slightly mistaking the situation, "This person is drunk. He ought not to be allowed in such a condition on an omnibus."
Stacey-Lumpton was too confused to remonstrate. He went floundering on. Presently he kicked against a box which a gentleman of the coster class had placed beside himself on the roof. In trying to recover himself he brought his hand down pretty heavily on its owner's hat. Said owner lost no time in calling his attention to the thing which he had done.
"Where do you think you're a-coming to? I shouldn't be surprised but what you thought this 'bus was made for you. You do that again and I'll send you travelling, and don't you seem to forget it neither."
Stacey-Lumpton had reached a vacant seat at last. I sat beside him. Immediately behind us was the coster. He had taken off his hat and was lovingly examining it. It was an ancient billycock, which had been in somebody's family for several generations. A friend accompanied him.
"If I was you, Jimmy," observed his friend, "I should make that cove pay for your 'at."
"Make 'im pay for it? He ain't got no money. Do 'e look as though 'e 'ad?"
"Well, I should make 'im give yer 'is 'at for yourn. He's bashed your 'at in, ain't 'e?"
Jimmy acted on the hint. Leaning forward, he thrust his reminiscence of a head-covering under Stacey-Lumpton's nose.
"I say, I don't know if you know that you've bashed my 'at in, guv'nor?"
Stacey-Lumpton raised his fingers to his nostrils.