“I ’spex,” says he, “when the middling-size bear found his porridge eaten up, he wondered who it was.”
“Shut up about the bears,” said I. “What about your gov.—your daddy? Where does he live?”
“In London town,” said he, as soon as I could knock those bears out of his head.
“Whereabouts? What street?”
“London town.”
“Do you mean to say—look here, what’s your name? Tommy what?”
“It’s Tommy,” he said.
“I know that. Is it Tommy Jones, or Tommy Robinson, or what?”
“It’s Tommy,” he repeated. “My name’s Tommy.” Here was a nice go! Stranded with a kid that didn’t know his own name, or where his governor lived! The worst of it was, I had to stop in London that night as there was no train on. My pater had written to get a room for me at the Euston Hotel, so that I should be on the spot for starting home first train in the morning.
I was regularly stumped, I can tell you. It never turned a feather on the kid, his governor not turning up; and I couldn’t make the idiot understand anything. He hung on to me singing and saying, “Who’s been tasting my porridge and eaten it all up?” or else cheeking the porters, or else trying to whistle to make the trains go.