Page 231 - down-and-out-in-paris-and-london

XXXV

rrived at Lower Binfield, we sprawled for a long time on
Athe green, watched by cottagers from their front gates.
A clergyman and his daughter came and stared silently
at us for a while, as though we had been aquarium fishes,
and then went away again. There were several dozen of us
waiting. William and Fred were there, still singing, and the
men who had fought, and Bill the moocher. He had been
mooching from bakers, and had quantities of stale bread
tucked away between his coat and his bare body. He shared
it out, and we were all glad of it. There was a woman among
us, the first woman tramp I had ever seen. She was a fat-
tish, battered, very dirty woman of sixty, in a long, trailing
black skirt. She put on great airs of dignity, and if anyone sat
down near her she sniffed and moved farther off.
‘Where you bound for, missis?’ one of the tramps called
to her.
The woman sniffed and looked into the distance.
‘Come on, missis,’ he said, ‘cheer up. Be chummy. We’re
all in the same boat ‘ere.’
‘Thank you,’ said the woman bitterly, ‘when I want to get
mixed up with a set of TRAMPS, I’ll let you know.’
I enjoyed the way she said TRAMPS. It seemed to show
you in a flash the whole other soul; a small, blinkered, femi-
nine soul, that had learned absolutely nothing from years

0 Down and Out in Paris and London