lamp-post! shall we pass with a careless wag and a 'how-do,' or become
locked in a life and death struggle? Impossible to say. This coming
corner, now, 'Ware! Is anybody waiting round there to kill me, or
not?"

But the trusting face beside me nerved me. As reward in lonely places
I would let her hold my hand.

A second advantage I derived from her company was that of being less
trampled on, less walked over, less swept aside into doorway or gutter
than when alone. A pretty, winsome face had this little maid, if
Memory plays me not kindly false; but also she had a vocabulary; and
when the blind idiot, male or female, instead of passing us by walking
round us, would, after the custom of the blind idiot, seek to gain the
other side of us by walking through us, she would use it.

"Now, then, where yer coming to, old glass-eye? We ain't sperrits.
Can't yer see us?"

And if they attempted reply, her child's treble, so strangely at
variance with her dainty appearance, would only rise more shrill.

"Garn! They'd run out of 'eads when they was making you. That's only
a turnip wot you've got stuck on top of yer!" I offer but specimens.

Nor was it of the slightest use attempting personal chastisement, as
sometimes an irate lady or gentleman would be foolish enough to do.
As well might an hippopotamus attempt to reprove a terrier. The only
result was to provide comedy for the entire street.