"Come now, younker," said the sailor, thrusting his hands into his
coat-pockets, and leaning a little forward with legs well apart, as if
in readiness to counteract the rolling of the court in a heavy sea,
"there's no occasion for you an' me to go beatin' about--off an' on.
Let's come to close quarters at once. I haven't putt in here to look
for no grog-shop--"

"W'ich I didn't say you 'ad," interrupted the boy.

"No more you did, youngster. Well, what I dropped in here for was to
look arter an old woman."

"If you'd said a young 'un, now, I might 'ave b'lieved you," returned
the pert urchin.

"You _may_ believe me, then, for I wants a young 'un too."

"Well, old salt," rejoined the boy, resting his ragged arms on the
window-sill, and looking down on the weather-beaten man with an
expression of patronising interest, "you've come to the right shop,
anyhow, for that keemodity. In Lun'on we've got old women by the
thousand, an' young uns by the million, to say nuffin o' middle-aged uns
an' chicks. Have 'ee got a partikler pattern in yer eye, now, or d'ee
on'y want samples?"

"What's your name, lad?" asked the sailor.

"That depends, old man. If a beak axes me, I've got a wariety o' names,
an' gives 'im the first as comes to 'and. W'en a gen'leman axes me, I'm
more partikler--I makes a s'lection."

"Bein' neither a beak nor a gentleman, lad, what would you say your name
was to _me_?"

"Tommy Splint," replied the boy promptly. "Splint, 'cause w'en I was
picked up, a small babby, at the work'us door, my left leg was broke,
an' they 'ad to putt it up in splints; Tommy, 'cause they said I was
like a he-cat; w'ich was a lie!"

"Is your father alive, Tommy?"

"'Ow should _I_ know? I've got no father nor mother--never had none as
I knows on; an' what's more, I don't want any. I'm a horphing, _I_ am,
an' I prefers it. Fathers an' mothers is often wery aggrawatin';
they're uncommon hard to manage w'en they're bad, an' a cause o' much
wexation an' worry to child'n w'en they're good; so, on the whole, I
think we're better without 'em. Chimleypot Liz is parent enough for
me."

"And who may chimney-pot Liz be?" asked the sailor with sudden interest.

"H'm!" returned the boy with equally sudden caution and hesitancy. "I
didn't say _chimney-pot_ but _chimley-pot_ Liz. W'at is she? W'y,
she's the ugliest old ooman in this great meetropilis, an' she's got the
jolliest old 'art in Lun'on. Her skin is wrinkl