“Ain’t you glad to see me, Julia?” ses George Dixon.
“Yes, I s’pose so; if you’ve come back to behave yourself,” ses Mrs. Dixon. “What ’ave you got to say for yourself for running away and then writing them letters, telling me to get rid of my relations?”
“That’s a long time ago, Julia,” ses Dixon, raising the flap in the counter and going into the bar. “I’ve gone through a great deal o’ suffering since then. I’ve been knocked about till I ’adn’t got any feeling left in me; I’ve been shipwrecked, and I’ve ’ad to fight for my life with savages.”
“Nobody asked you to run away,” ses his wife, edging away as he went to put his arm round ’er waist. “You’d better go upstairs and put on some decent clothes.”
Dixon looked at ’er for a moment and then he ’ung his ’ead.
“I’ve been thinking o’ you and of seeing you agin every day since I went away, Julia,” he ses. “You’d be the same to me if you was dressed in rags.”
He went upstairs without another word, and old Burge, who was coming down, came down five of ’em at once owing to Dixon speaking to ’im afore he knew who ’e was. The old man was still grumbling when Dixon came down agin, and said he believed he’d done it a-purpose.
“You run away from a good ’ome,” he ses, “and the best wife in Wapping, and you come back and frighten people ’arf out o’ their lives. I never see such a feller in all my born days.”