“You may do as yer like,” he said, mournfully, “but I’ve got to.”
The sigh of envy at the comparative freedom of my position as compared with his own was full of pathos.
A case of a workman who was being sued for lodging money gave me a new insight into the point of view of the clever but dissipated workman. His late landlady was suing for arrears run up when, as she said, he was “out of work.”
The phrase made him very angry.
“Look ’ere,” he said, “can that wumman kiss the book agen? She’s swearin’ false. I’ve never been out o’ wark i’ my life. Never.”
“Tummas,” says the old lady, in a soothingly irritating voice. “Think, Tummas.”
“Never been out o’ wark i’ my life,” he shouts.
“Oh, Tummas,” says the old lady, more in sorrow than in anger. “You remember Queen’s funeral. You were on the spree a whole fortneet.”
“Oh, ay!” says Thomas unabashed; “but you said out o’ wark. If you’re sayin’ on the spree I’m with yer, but I’ve never been out o’ wark i’ my life.”
It was a sad distinction for a clever working man to make, but a true one and to him an important one, and I rather fancy the nice old lady knew well what she was doing in her choice of phrase and hoped to score off Thomas by irritating him into an unseemly exhibition by the use of it.