The Complete Works. George Orwell

“Ain’t it going to be a proper perisher, too? Look at the perishing river mist creeping up that there column. Freeze the fish-hooks off of ole Nelson before morning.”

      Mrs. Wayne: “Of course, at the time that I’m speaking of we still had our little tobacco and sweetstuff business on the corner, you’ll understand. . . .”

      The Kike: “Oh Je-e-e-eeze! Lend’s that overcoat of yours, Ginger. I’m bloody freezing!”

      Snouter: “—— double-crossing bastard! P’raps I won’t bash ’is navel in when I get a ’old of ’im!”

      Charlie: “Fortunes o’ war, boy, fortunes o’ war. Perishing Square to-night—rumpsteak and kip on feathers to-morrow. What else d’you expect on perishing Thursday?”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “Shove up, Daddy, shove up! Think I want your lousy old ’ed on my shoulder—me a married woman?”

      Mr. Tallboys (to himself): “For preaching, chanting and intoning I was unrivalled. My ‘Lift up your Hearts’ was renowned throughout the diocese. All styles I could do you, High Church, Low Church Broad Church and No Church. Throaty Anglo-Cat Warblings, straight from the shoulder muscular Anglican, or the adenoidal Low Church whine in which still lurk the Houyhnhnm-notes of neighing chapel elders. . . .”

      Deafie (singing): “With my willy willy——”

      Ginger: “Take your ’ands off that bleeding overcoat, Kikie. You don’t get no clo’es of mine while you got the chats on you.”

      Charlie (singing):

      “As pants the ’art for cooling streams,

       When ’eated in the chase——”

      Mrs. McElligot (in her sleep): “Was ’at you, Michael dear?”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “It’s my belief as the sneaking bastard ’ad another wife living when ’e married me.”

      Mr. Tallboys (from the roof of his mouth, stage curate-wise, reminiscently): “If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony . . .”

      The Kike: “A pal! A bloody pal! And won’t lend his bloody overcoat!”

      Mrs. Wayne: “Well, now as you’ve mentioned it, I must admit as I never was one to refuse a nice cup of tea. I know that when our poor dear mother was alive, pot after pot we used to . . .”

      Nosy Watson (to himself, angrily): “Sod! . . . Gee’d into it and then a stretch all round. . . . Never even done the bloody job. . . . Sod!”

      Deafie (singing): “With my willy willy——”

      Mrs. McElligot (half asleep): “Dear Michael. . . . He was real loving, Michael was. Tender an’ true. . . . Never looked at another man since dat evenin’ when I met’m outside Kronk’s slaughter-house an’ he gimme de two pound o’ sausage as he’d bummed off de International Stores for his own supper. . . .”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “Well, I suppose we’ll get that bloody tea this time to-morrow.”

      Mr. Tallboys (chanting, reminiscently): “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, when we remembered thee, O Zion! . . .”

      Dorothy: “Oh, this cold, this cold!”

      Snouter: “Well, I don’t do no more —— starries this side of Christmas. I’ll ’ave my kip to-morrow if I ’ave to cut it out of their bowels.”

      Nosy Watson: “Detective, is he? Smith of the Flying Squad! Flying Judas more likely! All they can bloody do—copping the old offenders what no beak won’t give a fair chance.”

      Ginger: “Well, I’m off for the fiddlede-dee. ’Oo’s got a couple of clods for the water?”

      Mrs. McElligot (waking): “Oh dear, oh dear! If my back ain’t fair broke! Oh holy Jesus, if dis bench don’t catch you across de kidneys! An’ dere was me dreamin’ I was warm in kip wid a nice cup a’ tea an’ two o’ buttered toast waitin’ by me bedside. Well, dere goes me last wink o’ sleep till I gets into Lambeth public lib’ry to-morrow.”

      Daddy (his head emerging from within his overcoat like a tortoise’s from within its shell): “Wassat you said, boy? Paying money for water! How long’ve you bin on the road, you ignorant young scut? Money for bloody water? Bum it, boy, bum it! Don’t buy what you can bum and don’t bum what you can steal. That’s my word—fifty year on the road, man and boy.” (Retires within his coat.)

      Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “O all ye works of the Lord——”

      Deafie (singing): “With my willy willy——”

      Charlie: “ ’Oo was it copped you, Nosy?”

      The Kike: “Oh Je-e-e-eeze!”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “Shove up, shove up! Seems to me some folks think they’ve took a mortgage on this bloody seat.”

      Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “O all ye works of the Lord, curse ye the Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

      Mrs. McElligot: “What I always says is, it’s always us poor bloody Catholics dat’s down in de bloody dumps.”

      Nosy Watson: “Smithy. Flying Squad—flying sod! Give us the plans of the house and everything, and then had a van full of coppers waiting and nipped the lot of us. I wrote it up in the Black Maria:

      ‘Detective Smith knows how to gee;

       Tell him he’s a —— from me.’ ”

      Snouter: “ ’Ere, what about our —— tea? Go on, Kikie, you’re a young ’un; shut that —— noise and take the drums. Don’t you pay nothing. Worm it out of the old tart. Snivel. Do the doleful.”

      Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “O all ye children of men, curse ye the Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

      Charlie: “What, is Smithy crooked too?”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “I tell you what, girls, I tell you what gets me down, and that’s to think of my bloody husband snoring under four blankets and me freezing in this bloody Square. That’s what I can’t stomach. The unnatural sod!”

      Ginger (singing): “ ‘There they go—in their joy——’ Don’t take that there drum with the cold sausage in it, Kikie.”

      Nosy Watson: “Crooked? Crooked? Why, a corkscrew ’ud look like a bloody bradawl beside of him! There isn’t one of them double —— sons of whores in the Flying Squad but ’ud sell his grandmother to the knackers for two pound ten and then sit on her gravestone eating potato crisps. The geeing, narking toerag!”

      Charlie: “Perishing tough. ’Ow many convictions you got?”

      Ginger (singing):

      “There they go—in their joy—

      ’Appy girl—lucky boy——”

      Nosy Watson: “Fourteen. You don’t stand no chance with that lot against you.”

      Mrs. Wayne: “What, don’t he keep you, then?”

      Mrs. Bendigo: “No, I’m married to this one, sod ’im!”

      Charlie: “I got perishing nine myself.”

      Mr. Tallboys (chanting): “O Ananias, Azarias and Misael, curse ye the Lord, curse Him and vilify Him for ever!”

      Ginger (singing):

      “There they go—in their joy—

      ’Appy girl—lucky boy—

      But ’ere am I-I-I—

      Broken—’a-a-aarted!

      God, I ain’t ’ad a dig in the grave for three days. ’Ow long since you washed your face, Snouter?”