was her name?

ROBERT. Mary--same as the little gel's.

MANSON. I wonder whether they are anything alike.

ROBERT. That's wot I come to see! . . .

She 'ad 'er mother's nose when she was a biby--_and_ 'er eyes!
Gorstrike, she was the very spit--far as a biby could be! . . .

Swelp me Moses, if I find 'er anything like Bill's ole geezer, I'll
cut 'er throat!

MANSON. And if she's like her mother? What then?

ROBERT. Why, then . . . there's allus my own. I nearly did it
once.

MANSON [after a pause]. How did you come to lose her?

ROBERT [roughly]. Never you mind!

MANSON. How did you come to lose her?

ROBERT [sullenly]. Typhoid fever.

[MANSON notes the evasion with a glance. He helps ROBERT to more
tea, and waits for him to speak. ROBERT wriggles under his gaze,
and at last he says, reluctantly.]

Oh, it was my own fault, as I lost the kid!

MANSON. That was a sore loss, comrade.

ROBERT. _I_ know it! Needn't rub it in! . . . Look, 'ere,
comride, I 'adn't a bad nature to begin with. Didn't me an' my
brother Joshua pinch an' slave the skin orf our bones to send that
spotted swine to school? Didn't we 'elp 'im out with 'is books an'
'is mortar-boards an' 'is bits of clothes to try an' mek 'im look
respectable? That's wot we did, till 'e got 'is lousy scholyships,
an' run away to get spliced with that she-male pup of a
blood-'ound! Cos why? Cos we was proud of the little
perisher!--proud of 'is 'ead-piece! We 'adn't gone none
ourselves--leastways, _I_ 'adn't: Joshua was different to me; and
now . . .

MANSON. And your brother Joshua: what of him? Where is _he_ now?

ROBERT. _I_ don't know--gone to pot, like me! P'r'aps eatin' is
bleedin' 'eart out, same as I am, at the base ingratitood of the
world!

MANSON. Perhaps so!

ROBERT. Where was I? You mek me lose my air, shoving in with your
bit!

MANSON. You were saying that you hadn't a bad nature to begin with.

ROBERT [truculently]. No more I 'adn't! . . .

O' course, when she took an'--an' died, things was different: I
couldn't 'old up the same-- Somehow, I don't know, I lost my 'eart,
and . . .

MANSON. Yes? . . .

ROBERT. That's 'ow I come to lose my kid, my little kid . . .
Mind you, that was fifteen years ago: I was a rotter then, same as
you might be. I wasn't 'arf the man I am now . . .

_You_ can larf! A man can change a lot in fifteen years!

MANSON. _I_ didn't laugh.

ROBERT. Do you wan