Page 224 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

Some of the tramps began telling stories. One of them,
Bill, was an interesting type, a genuine sturdy beggar of the
old breed, strong as Hercules and a frank foe of work. He
boasted that with his great strength he could get a nawying
job any time he liked, but as soon as he drew his first week’s
wages he went on a terrific drunk and was sacked. Between
whiles he ‘mooched’, chiefly from shopkeepers. He talked
like this:
‘I ain’t goin’ far in—Kent. Kent’s a tight county, Kent is.
There’s too many bin’ moochin’ about ‘ere. The—bakers get
so as they’ll throw their bread away sooner’n give it you.
Now Oxford, that’s the place for moochin’, Oxford is. When
I was in Oxford I mooched bread, and I mooched bacon,
and I mooched beef, and every night I mooched tanners for
my kip off of the students. The last night I was twopence
short of my kip, so I goes up to a parson and mooches ‘im for
threepence. He give me threepence, and the next moment
he turns round and gives me in charge for beggin’. ‘You bin
beggin’,’ the copper says. ‘No I ain’t,’ I says, ‘I was askin’ the
gentleman the time,’ I says. The copper starts feelin’ inside
my coat, and he pulls out a pound of meat and two loaves of
bread. ‘Well, what’s all this, then?’ he says. ‘You better come
‘long to the station,’ he says. The beak give me seven days. I
don’t mooch from no more—parsons. But Christ! what do I
care for a lay-up of seven days?’ etc. etc.
It seemed that his whole life was this—a round of
mooching, drunks, and lay-ups. He laughed as he talked of
it, taking it all for a tremendous joke. He looked as though
he made a poor thing out of begging, for he wore only a cor-