nervous about the coin, but he paid up right enough, and giv me a
ha'penny for myself.

That was the first time I ever waited upon those two, but it wasn't to be
the last by many a long chalk, as you'll see. He often used to bring her
in after that. Who she was and what she was he didn't know, and she
didn't know, so there was a pair of them. She'd run away from an old
woman down Limehouse way, who used to beat her. That was all she could
tell him. He got her a lodging with an old woman, who had an attic in
the same house where he slept--when it would run to that--taught her to
yell "Speshul!" and found a corner for her. There ain't room for boys
and girls in the Mile-End Road. They're either kids down there or
they're grown-ups. "Kipper" and "Carrots"--as we named her--looked upon
themselves as sweethearts, though he couldn't have been more than
fifteen, and she barely twelve; and that he was regular gone on her
anyone could see with half an eye. Not that he was soft about it--that
wasn't his style. He kept her in order, and she had just to mind, which
I guess was a good thing for her, and when she wanted it he'd use his
hand on her, and make no bones about it. That's the way among that
class. They up and give the old woman a friendly clump, just as you or
me would swear at the missus, or fling a boot-jack at her. They don't
mean anything more.

I left the coffee shop later on for a place in the city, and saw nothing
more of them for five years. When I did it was at a restaurant in Oxford
Street--one of those amatoor shows run by a lot of women, who know
nothing about the business, and spend the whole day gossiping and
flirting--"love-shops," I call 'em. There was a yellow-haired lady
manageress who never heard you when you spoke to her, 'cause she was
always trying to hear what some seedy old fool would be whispering to her