"Where I seem like to be goin' now you've got your currant-pickers on
me--Hell," answered the boy, with something like a sigh of despair.
"Leastways, I been in Hell ever since I can remember anyfink, so I
reckon I must have come from there."

"What's your name?"

"Dollops. S'pose I must a had another sometime, but I never heard of it.
Wot's that? Yuss--most nineteen. _Wot?_ Oh, go throw summink at
yourself! I aren't too young to be 'ungry, am I? And where's a cove
goin' to _find_ this 'ere 'honest work' you're a-talkin' of? I'm fair
sick of the gime of lookin' for it. Besides, you don't see parties as
goes in for the other thing walkin' round with ribs on 'em like
bed-slats, and not even the price of a cup of corfy in their pockets, do
you? No fear! I wouldn't've 'urt the young lydie; but I tell you strite,
I'd a took every blessed farthin' she 'ad on her if you 'adn't've
dropped on me like this."

"Got down to the last ditch--down to the point of desperation, eh?"

"Yuss. So would you if you 'ad a fing inside you tearin' and tearin'
like I 'ave. Aren't et a bloomin' crumb since the day before yusterday
at four in the mawnin' when a gent in an 'ansom--drunk as a lord, he
was--treated me and a parcel of others to a bun and a cup of corfy at a
corfy stall over 'Ighgate way. Stood out agin bein' a crook as long as
ever I could--as long as ever I'm goin' to, I reckon, now _you've_ got
your maulers on me. I'll be on the list after this. The cops 'ull know
me; and when you've got the nime--well, wot's the odds? You might as
well 'ave the gime as well, and git over goin' empty. All right, run me