Knocker, and I lives in
Primrose Court, Great Queen Street, and my reg'lar perfession is
a-sellin' coffee "so airly in the mornin'," and I've got a darter as
ain't quite so 'ansom as me, bein' the moral of her father as is over
the water a-livin' in the fine 'Straley. And you must know, sir, that
one of summer's day there comes a knock at our door as sends my 'eart
into my mouth and makes me cry out, "The coppers, by jabbers!" and
when I goes down and opens the door, lo! and behold, there stan's a
chap wi' great goggle eyes, dressed all in shiny black, jest like a
Quaker.' (Here she made a noise between a laugh and a cough.) 'I
allus say that when I do die I shall die a-larfin'--unless I die
a-cryin',' she added, in the same altered voice that had struck me
before.
'Well, mother,' said Cyril, 'and what did the shiny Quaker say?'
'They calls me "Jokin' Meg" in Primrose Court. The shiny Quaker, 'e
axes if my name is Gudgeon. "Well," sez I, "supposin' as my name _is_
Gudgeon,--I don't say it is," says I, "but supposin' as it is,--what
then?" sez I.
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