Page 193 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

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he next morning we began looking once more for
TPaddy’s friend, who was called Bozo, and was a screev-
er—that is, a pavement artist. Addresses did not exist in
Paddy’s world, but he had a vague idea that Bozo might be
found in Lambeth, and in the end we ran across him on
the Embankment, where he had established himself not
far from Waterloo Bridge. He was kneeling on the pave-
ment with a box of chalks, copying a sketch of Winston
Churchill from a penny note-book. The likeness was not at
all bad. Bozo was a small, dark, hook-nosed man, with curly
hair growing low on his head. His right leg was dreadfully
deformed, the foot being twisted heel forward in a way hor-
rible to see. From his appearance one could have taken him
for a Jew, but he used to deny this vigorously. He spoke of
his hooknose as ‘Roman’, and was proud of his resemblance
to some Roman Emperor —it was Vespasian, I think.
Bozo had a strange way of talking, Cockneyfied and yet
very lucid and expressive. It was as though he had read good
books but had never troubled to correct Us grammar. For
a while Paddy and I stayed on the Embankment, talking,
and Bozo gave us an account of the screeving trade. I repeat
what he said more or less in his own words.
‘I’m what they call a serious screever. I don’t draw in
blackboard chalks like these others, I use proper colours

1 Down and Out in Paris and London