Page 195 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

you give them a bit of backchat. Once they’ve answered you
they feel ashamed not to give you a drop. The best thing’s
to keep changing your picture, because when they see you
drawing they’ll stop and watch you. The trouble is, the beg-
gars scatter as soon as you turn round with the hat. You
really want a nobber [assistant] at this game. You keep at
work and get a crowd watching you, and the nobber comes
casual-like round the back of them. They don’t know he’s
the nobber. Then suddenly he pulls his cap off, and you got
them between two fires like. You’ll never get a drop off real
toffs. It’s shabby sort of blokes you get most off, and foreign-
ers. I’ve had even sixpences off Japs, and blackies, and that.
They’re not so bloody mean as what an Englishman is. An-
other thing to remember is to keep your money covered up,
except perhaps a penny in the hat. People won’t give you
anything if they see you got a bob or two already.’
Bozo had the deepest contempt for the other screevers
on the Embankment. He called them ‘the salmon platers’.
At that time there was a screever almost every twenty-five
yards along the Embankment—twenty-five yards being the
recognized minimum between pitches. Bozo contemptu-
ously pointed out an old white-bearded screever fifty yards
away.
‘You see that silly old fool? He’s bin doing the same pic-
ture every day for ten years. ‘A faithful friend’ he calls it. It’s
of a dog pulling a child out of the water. The silly old bas-
tard can’t draw any better than a child of ten. He’s learned
just that one picture by rule of thumb, like you leam to put
a puzzle together. There’s a lot of that sort about here. They

1 Down and Out in Paris and London