ty-five. They're
very sorry--give you a character and happy to help you to get
anything suited to your years--sure a steady man won't be long
out of a job. Well, let em try you. They'll find the differ. What
do you know? Not as much as how to beeyave yourself--layin your
dirty fist across the mouth of a respectable woman!

BILL. Don't provoke me to lay it acrost yours: d'ye hear?

SHIRLEY [with blighting contempt] Yes: you like an old man to
hit, don't you, when you've finished with the women. I ain't seen
you hit a young one yet.

BILL [stung] You lie, you old soupkitchener, you. There was a
young man here. Did I offer to hit him or did I not?

SHIRLEY. Was he starvin or was he not? Was he a man or only a
crosseyed thief an a loafer? Would you hit my son-in-law's
brother?

BILL. Who's he?

SHIRLEY. Todger Fairmile o Balls Pond. Him that won 20 pounds off
the Japanese wrastler at the music hall by standin out 17 minutes
4 seconds agen him.

BILL [sullenly] I'm no music hall wrastler. Can he box?

SHIRLEY. Yes: an you can't.

BILL. Wot! I can't, can't I? Wot's that you say [threatening
him]?

SHIRLEY [not budging an inch] Will you box Todger Fairmile if I
put him on to you? Say the word.

BILL. [subsiding with a slouch] I'll stand up to any man alive,
if he was ten Todger Fairmiles. But I don't set up to be a
perfessional.

SHIRLEY [looking down on him with unfathomable disdain] YOU box!
Slap an old woman with the back o your hand! You hadn't even the
sense to hit her where a magistrate couldn't see the mark of it,
you silly young lump of conceit and ignorance. Hit a girl in the
jaw and ony make her cry! If Todger Fairmile'd done it, she
wouldn't a got up inside o ten minutes, no more than you would if
he got on to you. Yah! I'd set about you myself if I had a week's
feedin in me instead o two months starvation. [He returns to the
table to finish his meal].

BILL [following him and stooping over him to drive the taunt in]
You lie! you have the bread and treacle in you that you come here
to beg.

SHIRLEY [bursting into tears] Oh God! it's true: I'm only an old
pauper on the scrap heap. [Furiously] But you'll come to it
yourself; and then you'll know. You'll come to it sooner than a
teetotaller like me, fillin yourself with gin at this hour o the
mornin!

BILL. I'm no gin drinker, you old liar; but when I want to give
my girl a bloomin good idin I like to av a bit o devil in me:
see? An here I am,