--But hullo! p'leaceman, what's up now? What the devil are you
a-squeedgin' my 'and like that for? Are you a-goin' to kiss it? It
ain't none so clean, p'leaceman. You're the rummest copper in plain
clothes ever I seed in all my born days. Fust you seem as if you want
to bite me, you looks so savage, an' then you looks as if you wants
to kiss me; you'll make me laugh, I know you will, an' that'll make
me cough.--Hi! Poll Onion, come 'ere. Bring my best lookin'-glass out
o' my bowdore, an' let me look at my ole chops, for I'm blowed if
there ain't a copper in plain clothes this time as is fell 'ead over
ears in love with me, jist as the young swell did at the studero.'
'Go on, Mrs. Gudgeon,' I said; 'go on. She ate the food?'
'Oh, didn't she jist! And the pore half-sharp thing took to me, an' I
took to she, an' I thinks to myself, "She's a purty gal, if she's
ever so stupid, an' she'll get 'er livin' a-sellin' flowers o' fine
days, an' a-doin' the rainy-night dodge with baskets when it's wet ";
an' so I took 'er in, an' in the street she'd all of a suddent bust
out a-singin' songs about Snowdon an' sich like, just as if she was
a-singin' in a dream, and folk used to like to 'ear 'er an' gev 'er
money; an' I was a good mother to 'er, I was, an' them as sez I
worn't is cussed liars.
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