"Thankee, sir. Can you tell, sir, what time it is?"
And this little question was my recompense. He and I wanted to
know the time. I asked him why he wanted to know the time, and he
told me because that evening a friend was coming to fetch him.
And, wondering who that friend might be, and, hoping he might tell
me, I asked him about his case of pencils, expressing a hope that
he sold them. He answered that he was doing a nice bit of trading.
"The boys about here are a trouble," he said, "but the policeman
on the beat is a friend of mine, and he watches them and makes
them count the pencils they take. The other day they robbed me,
and he gave them such a cuffing that I don't think they'll take my
pencils again. You see, sir, I keep the money I take for the
pencils in the left pocket, and the money that is given to me I
keep in the right pocket. In this way I know if my accounts are
right when I make them up in the evening."
Now where, in what lonely room does he sit making up his accounts?
but, not wishing to seem inquisitorial, I turned the conversation.
"I suppose you know some of the passers-by."
"Yes, I know a tidy few. There's one gentleman who gives me a
penny every day, but he's gone abroad, I hear, and sixpence a week
is a big drop."
As I had given him a penny a day all the summer, I assumed he was
speaking of me. And my sixpence a week meant a day's dinner,
perhaps two days' dinners! It was only necessary for me to
withhold my charity to give him ease.
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