Page 229 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

Leaving the spike, we all started southward, a long
slouching procession, for Lower Binfield and Ide Hill. On
the way there was a fight between two of the tramps. They
had quarrelled overnight (there was some silly CASUS BEL-
LI about one saying to the other, ‘Bull shit’, which was taken
for Bolshevik—a deadly insult), and they fought it out in a
field. A dozen of us stayed to watch them. The scene sticks
in my mind for one thing—the man who was beaten going
down, and his cap falling off and showing that his hair was
quite white. After that some of us intervened and stopped
the fight. Paddy had meanwhile been making inquiries, and
found that the real cause of the quarrel was, as usual, a few
pennyworth of food.
We got to Lower Binfield quite early, and Paddy filled in
the time by asking for work at back doors. At one house he
was given some boxes to chop up for firewood, and, say-
ing he had a mate outside, he brought me in and we did
the work together. When it was done the householder told
the maid to take us out a cup of tea. I remember the terri-
fied way in which she brought it out, and then, losing her
courage, set the cups down on the path and bolted back to
the house, shutting herself in the kitchen. So dreadful is the
name of ‘tramp’. They paid us sixpence each, and we bought
a threepenny loaf and half an ounce of tobacco, leaving five-
pence.
Paddy thought it wiser to bury our fivepence, for the
Tramp Major at Lower Binfield was renowned as a tyrant
and might refuse to admit us if we had any money at all. It
is quite a common practice of tramps to bury their money.

Down and Out in Paris and London