sixpence, as the saying is; and instead of drinking water as
usual, sent the girl out for a pint of ale. The moment it came he drank
off half of it at a gulp, and then sat staring out of the window.

"'What's up?' I says. 'Got the shove?'

"'Yes,' he answers; 'but, as it happens, it's a shove up. I've been
taken off the yard and put on the walk, with a rise of two bob a week.'
Then he took another pull at the beer and looked more savage than ever.

"'Well,' I says, 'that ain't the sort of thing to be humpy about.'

"'Yes it is,' he snaps back; 'it means that if I don't take precious good
care I'll drift into being a blooming milkman, spending my life yelling
"Milk ahoi!" and spooning smutty-faced servant-gals across area
railings.'

"'Oh!' I says, 'and what may you prefer to spoon--duchesses?'

"'Yes,' he answers sulky-like; 'duchesses are right enough--some of 'em.'

"'So are servant-gals,' I says, 'some of 'em. Your hat's feeling a bit
small for you this morning, ain't it?'

"'Hat's all right,' says he; 'it's the world as I'm complaining
of--beastly place; there's nothing to do in it.'

"'Oh!' I says; 'some of us find there's a bit too much.' I'd been up
since five that morning myself; and his own work, which was scouring milk-
cans for twelve hours a day, didn't strike me as suggesting a life of
leisured ease.

"'I don't mean that,' he says. 'I mean things worth doing.'

"'Well, what do you want to do,' I says, 'that this world ain't big
enough for?'

"'It ain't the size of it,' he says; 'it's the dulness of it. Things
used to be different in the old days.'

"'How do you know?' I says.

"'You can read about it,' he answers.

"'Oh,' I says, 'and what do they know about it--these gents that sit down
and write about it for their living! You show me a book cracking up the
old times, writ by a chap as lived in 'em, and I'll believe you. Till
then I'll stick to my opinion that the old days were much the same as
these days, and maybe a trifle worse.'

"'From a Sunday School point of view, perhaps yes,' says he; 'but there's
no gainsaying--'

"'No what?' I says.

"'No gainsaying,' repeats he; 'it's a common word in literatoor.'

"'Maybe,' says I, 'but this happens to be "The Blue Posts Coffee House,"
established in the year 1863. We will use modern English here, if you
don't mind.' One had to take him down like that at times. He was the
sort of boy as would talk poetry to you if you weren't